Description: In the wake of World War I in the small, Southern town of Bellhaven, South Carolina, the town folk believe they’ve found a little slice of heaven in a mysterious chapel in the woods. But they soon realize that evil can come in the most beautiful of forms.
The people of Bellhaven have always looked to Ellsworth Newberry for guidance, but after losing his wife and his future as a professional pitcher, he is moments away from testing his mortality once and for all. Until he finally takes notice of the changes in his town . . . and the cardinals that have returned.
Upon the discovery of a small chapel deep in the Bellhaven woods, healing seems to fall upon the townspeople, bringing peace after several years of mourning. But as they visit the “healing floor” more frequently, the people begin to turn on one another, and the unusually tolerant town becomes anything but.
The cracks between the natural and supernatural begin to widen, and tensions rise. Before the town crumbles, Ellsworth must pull himself from the brink of suicide, overcome his demons, and face the truth of who he was born to be by leading the town into the woods to face the evil threatening Bellhaven.
My Thoughts: I went into this story not really knowing what to think about it. I knew from reading Markert's last novel with Thomas Nelson that this was likely to be some sort of analogy, one that was slightly weird and magical. Even the title confirmed the "strangeness" which would show up even within the first few pages in the form of odd characters and unnatural phenomena.
But even with all that was strange about Bellhaven, the first part of the novel began slow, taking awhile to situate the reader in Ellsworth's suicidal mind before even mentioning the chapel in the woods. And up until that point, I wasn't really wanting to continue with the story. It was only the mystery of the chapel, how it worked, why it was there, that kept me interested through the rest of the narrative. Even then, the pace was slow, with an entire chapter dedicated to leaving Ellsworth's thoughts in order to head hop between Bellhaven's plethora of religious leaders and delve into each of their inner sins.
It was around this point that the religious nature of the story emerged, with the religions and denominations dividing amongst the tension pulling the town apart. It's also when Ellsworth's predestined role begins to come into play.
I don't want to give away what happens or delve too much into the point this book was trying to get across. I'm not one hundred percent sure that I even understand what that point was. But I do want to say that I ended this book even more torn that I had with Markert's last. The mystery is engaging, the story weird enough to keep you guessing, but I'm not sure that I agree with the things the author was saying. Some of it, that not all things beautiful are good, were spot on while others... it's kind of difficult to explain without giving the story away.
This story is weird. It's dark despite being set in a really bright place, with a narrative that takes its time delivering partial answers. Still, ignoring my confusion over the religious point, it was an interesting read with an interesting setting.
I have provided an honest review after having received a copy of the book through the Fiction Guild.
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