Hardcover
352 pages
Mar 2007
Bethany House Publishers

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Review:

In High Places by Tom Morrisey is a story about rock climbing, and climbing over life’s unexpected rocks. Patrick Nolan didn’t think he’d come back from a rock climbing trip with his dad to find out that his mother had committed suicide. He also didn’t expect to start his life over in West Virginia, or to find a beautiful girl. Life isn’t always what we expect, but readers can feel the hope that exists throughout this book, a hope that is more than enough.

Morrisey brings readers into the valley of Seneca Rocks, in the rolling hills of West Virginia, and teaches them how to rock climb. He explains things while Patrick and his father make their many climbing excursions, so that any readers who have no experience with rock climbing will feel as though they are experts. While his description is vivid and entangling, the journey he sends Patrick on is even more complicated.

After his mother’s death, Patrick and his father relocate to Seneca Rocks, West Virginia. As a part of starting over, his father opens up a store for rock climbers and people involved in other outdoor hobbies. Both men are trying to cope with their loss and are left wondering why there weren’t any signs to warn them. Patrick worries about his dad when his dad starts taking very risky climbs. One morning Patrick runs into a girl. He is taken by her with his first look. She tells him to come with her and the next thing he knows, he’s dressed in his hiking shorts while attending a very conservative Baptist church service. There he finds out that the girl, Rachel, is the pastor’s daughter. The story moves quickly, uncovering clues of his mother’s death, expanding the relationship between Patrick and Rachel, and revealing another relationship that Patrick begins to explore with God.

At first glance, this book looks like it’s a book for guys, but anyone who loves a story deep with characters will easily relate. The first person narrative also appeals to people who enjoy reading memoirs. I recommend this book to anyone who loves a detail-rich story with plot depth. It is a great narrative of the hope we have and the journey it takes to find it. – Alyssa Curry, Christian Book Previews.com

Book Jacket:

A Breath From Tragedy, a Whisper from Glory

For Patrick Nolan, every climb tells a story. And now maybe it's his own …. He's right at the rim, staring over the cliff's knife edge and wondering how things went wrong so quickly.

It all started after arriving home from a weekend climbing trip with his father, Kevin. That's when word reached them. In a silent moment, they'd lost the person most important to them--her death raising unanswerable questions and dangerous doubts.

Launching a new life in a new town to escape their pain, son and father find themselves in danger of being torn apart forever. As his father seeks a route to solace on the dangerous high face of the rock, Patrick finds a path to hope with the unlikeliest of allies—a pastor's daughter. Together they must discover the one answer that can bring Patrick and Kevin back from the brink of the precipice.