Where the River Ends

May 26, 2008
In this sentimental story about a terminal cancer patient's demise, Martin (When Crickets Cry
) examines the lengths to which a loving husband will go for his dying wife. Doss Michaels, a portrait painter with a “trailer trash” background, marries Charleston, S.C., debutante Abbie Eliot Coleman, raised primarily by her demanding U.S. senator father after her mother died of ovarian cancer when Abbie was two. A decade after Abbie and Doss's marriage, her father and stepmother will still have little to do with Doss. Abbie develops breast cancer that later metastasizes to her brain, and tensions rise when Abbie's parents want her to spend her last days with them. But Doss and Abbie, armed with Abbie's top 10 wish list and fistfuls of medication, begin a 129-mile river journey from the small town of Moniac, Ga., on the St. Mary River out to the ocean. Martin brings to life the varying flora and fauna of this often fraught journey, while he captures the singular atmosphere of life on a changeable river as it traverses through varying Georgian and Floridian terrain. In the tradition of Nicholas Sparks and Robert James Waller, Martin has fashioned a heartbreaking story.

July 15, 2008
A Southern writer who has been compared to Nicholas Sparks, Martin wrote his sixth novel after hearing of a man divorcing a wife dying of breast cancer. Doss Michaels, a fishing guide and part-time artist in Charleston, SC, is willing to face possible kidnapping and other serious charges generated by his disapproving father-in-law to fulfill his wife Abbie's last wishes for one more adventure togethera 130-mile trip down St. Mary's River. Filled with stereotypes (Abbie is the beautiful daughter of a Charleston senator who considers Doss trailer trash) and stretching credulity at times (a woman dying of cancer surviving even a day in a canoe), this story might win over readers nonetheless with its theme of husbandly devotion. The many nice ideas and images throughout, such as the use of the river journey as a metaphor for life, and Abbie and Doss's loving 14-year marriage chronicled in alternate chapters also compensate. Yet the abundance of nature/wildlife detail may detract from the story for some readers. But Abbie's top-ten wishes for her last year will make readers consider their own. Purchase where Martin is popular.Rebecca Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2008
Theres sweet and sensitive, then theresdownright saccharine. Martins vapid tale of a young husband whowill go to the ends of the earth to grant his dying wife her final wish is a work ofunabashed romanticism and heartbreakingsadnessthat requiresreaders to suspend disbelief and simply ride the high current of emotion. When starving artist Doss Michaels interrupts the rape-in-progress of supermodel Abbie Coleman in aCharleston park, he sets in motion a fairy-talelove story. Then, a decadeinto their storybook marriage, during a yearspent visiting European art galleries, thanks tofive-figure commissions for Doss, Abbie discovers a lump in her breast, the herald ofvirulent cancer.With seemingly only days left to live, she makes Doss fulfill a promise to repeat their honeymoon trip canoeing down a river inthe wilds of Georgia. The arduous journey is rife withDeliverance-style malevolence as Doss and Abby fight off would-be gang rapists (again!), dodge a hurricane, and employ a bush pilot and defrocked priest to help them. Martins jejune and hackneyed sixth novelis being touted as his mainstream debut, and it may well appeal tofans of Nicholas Sparks, Robert JamesWaller, and Richard Paul Evans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)