Wendy reviews ‘When Heaven Strikes’ by F.E. Feeley Jr. Self published October 17,2017, 6 hours and 4 minutes.
Can love survive heaven’s wrath?
Artist Ted Armstrong lives a solitary and eccentric life. The survivor of child abuse disguised as religion, Ted has cut himself off from the world.
Then Ted meets Anderson Taylor, and it’s like being struck by lightning.
Anderson is a cardiac surgeon whose passion for his work has consumed him. He fears he’ll never find a partner – until he sets eyes on Ted. It’s happening fast, but both men know what they feel is right.
Confronted with an angry preacher, a scandal, and an act of God that threatens to destroy everything, their relationship will face its first true test.
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I (Wendy), was given a copy of this audio-book by the narrator in exchange for an honest review.
Wendy’s review: I don’t often read books that have religious overtones. It makes me furious enough seeing how people twist things to suit them in the name of religion in real life and that carries over for me into reading. It may be a good thing because if written well (and this story is VERY well written), I can really feel a lot of emotion. This audiobook brought out just about every emotion I have. I felt angry that some parents don’t know the meaning of unconditional love, I felt grateful that the characters were able to find that unconditional love in others to replace what their parents couldn’t give, I felt the rush of new love, strong, but just beginning and I felt a huge sense of family.
Ted, an artist from a fanatically religious family was so sweet. Even having to face so many things growing up alone for the most part, he was still just a very endearing character. I appreciated that for all it made him introverted, it also made him determined and even though it did cloud his thinking, it didn’t overshadow it enough to stop him from trying to be the best him he could be and it didn’t stop him from grabbing his slice of happy when it was in front of him. One of the things that I liked most about this character was that he could have been angst ridden, making poor decisions based on fear and feeling inadequate. But he was very adult and thought things through for the most part before acting out. I was glad that he took a chance on Anderson. The relationship between the two of them becomes intimate rather quickly but again it is written so well and flows with the story so seamlessly that it just works. And boy do they ever work well together! I sometimes skip over sex scenes and there are many reasons that I do, but these two together were perfection and just the right amount of sexy to make me wonder if the temperature in the room had gone up.
Anderson is the person that started off the story and I loved him from the very first moment. I love everything about him. He is a thoughtful, loving, smart and fun character. That he too is willing to take a shot at the big L when things in his past haven’t been perfect in a completely different way than Ted made me very happy. That this character was able to navigate this budding romance into a relationship in an adult manner was like the cherry on top of the sundae for me.
The secondary characters were amazing I loved some of them instantly I disliked some of them instantly and I even changed my mind about how I felt about one or two of them. They MADE this story what it is, in my opinion. Oh, that religion thing? It was an important part of the story but done in a very nice way and it really hits home that heaven can strike at any time. I enjoyed this story immensely.
The narration was simply amazing! I love Vance Bastian’s voice, the way he emotes, the different characters, it was all perfection. Some narrators take their time and put their all into the stories they narrate and Vance is one of those narrators. I appreciate it when they really get into the characters, it makes the stories that much better for me.
Rainbow Gold Reviews 