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A Bend in the Road: a good attempt but not quite thereErica Flatt, Charger Staff From the author who brought us Message in a Bottle, The Notebook
and A Walk to Remember comes Nicholas Sparks’s latest novel, A
Bend in the Road. Like Sparks’s other stories, this one is the story of a guy and a girl
who meet, fall in love, have trouble and eventually find their way back to each
other. Miles Ryan, a sherriff’s deputy and a widower, does all he can to find
the truth behind his wife Missy’s death caused by a hit and run. At the
same time, Miles deals with the struggles of raising his young son, Jonah. Sarah Andrews comes into the picture when she moves to New Bern, North Carolina,
to teach Jonah’s class. It starts as a common parent-teacher relationship
and, of course, evolves from there. The two meet and eventually fall in love and, naturally, they experience their
fair share of problems. Miles and Sarah’s lives change drastically each
time they come to a bend in the road. The relationship takes a fall when Miles goes in search of his wife’s
killer even when he is warned to stay away from the main suspect, Otis Timson,
and all other key witnesses. When Sarah starts encouraging Miles to back off the case, he feels she is no
longer supportive of him and that she believes Otis is innocent. This proves
to be a destructive blow to their relationship. All of a sudden, the story takes a huge turn. It is at this point that we learn
who the killer is. Some clues are given before this revelation, but I didn’t
think anything of them at the time. So I thought the story was finally near the end, but I was wrong. In just a
few short chapters one event happens after another. I was led to believe that
one thing would happen, but the complete opposite played out. Sparks takes a different approach to writing the novel. He first tells you
about Miles and Missy’s life together before her death. Then, he tells
you about Miles’s life now. And then we learn about Sarah. He skips back and forth between characters in the chapters. Every now and then,
there is a chapter narrated by the killer. We learn of the murderer’s life
after Missy’s death and the path of destruction that follows. The story itself ends abruptly, but the epilogue wraps up all the loose ends.
Of course, this story comes to a pleasant end. Unlike Sparks’s other novels, this one involves more than just the guy
and girl who fall in love. Sparks tries to write suspense into the middle of
a love story, and he does so without great success. While it is a good read, I don’t believe this is Sparks at his best. It’s
still very much a book for girls, but it’s not a tear-jerker like some
of his others. Even though it is not the author’s greatest work, Nicholas Sparks has
appealed to readers once again with A Bend in the Road.
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