Where the Road Bends by David Rawlings {A Book Review}

**I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley for consideration. All thoughts are 100% my own. 

How did I get here? 

He ripped back the zip, his heart pounding as red dust trickled in and landed on his face. He stood, brushing the dust from his eyes, a sense of vertigo launching itself up his spine. One step from the swag and his eyes snapped open. He started to lean into a void. Over a cliff. 

Fifteen years after college graduation, four friends reconnect to keep a long-ago promise and go on a trip of a lifetime in the Australian Outback.

Eliza needs to disconnect from her high-powered fashion job to consider the CEO position she’s just been offered. Lincoln hopes to rekindle a past relationship and escape from another one. Bree looks forward to a fun getaway from home and her deeply buried disappointments. Andy wants to disappear from the mess he’s made of his life—possibly forever.

Dropped at a campsite in the middle of nowhere, the friends quickly discover they aren’t the same people they once were, and they begin to confront hard truths about one another—and themselves. Then a bizarre storm sweeps across their camp, scattering them across the desert. Wondering if they are part of some strange escape game, each of the friends meets a guide to help them find exactly what they need: purpose, healing, courage, and redemption.

But they’ve already traveled far down the road of life and course-correcting to become the people they were meant to be won’t be easy. 

David Rawlings is a Christy Award-winning Australian author and a sports-mad father of three who loves humor and a clever turn of phrase. Over a 25-year career he has put words on the page to put food on the table, developing from sports journalism and copywriting to corporate communication. Now in fiction, he entices readers to look deeper into life with stories that combine the everyday with a sense of the speculative, addressing the fundamental questions we all face.

Website: www.davidrawlings.com.au; Facebook: David Rawlings – Author; Instagram: davidrawlingsauthor.

When I sit down to read a new book by David Rawlings, I know one thing to be true: it is going to make me think! I love his use of allegories to ask the important questions in life. In Where The Road Bends, that question is: how did you get to where you are in life?

When four old college friends meet up after 15 years to go on an adventure in Australia, that is just the question they are faced with. Through some rather mysterious circumstances, they all find themselves taking a look at their own issues, where they began...and how they can improve upon them. There were definitely some elements of faith, and a spiritual aspect to the story as well, which I genuinely enjoy in this author's story. That said, it wasn't overly Christian (no mentions of God specifically that I recall), so it could perhaps appeal to an even wider audience as such.

Without giving too much away, I will say that there was one particular character whose story I felt like didn't quite reach the resolution I had hoped for... but then such is life, sometimes I suppose that is just what truly happens sometimes... would I have liked to have seen it end differently? Yes, absolutely. But I can also understand the reasoning why it did not.

I must admit that for me this one wasn't quite as good as I had come to expect from David Rawlings, but it was a quick and enjoyable read nonetheless and one I would still recommend.