619-822-3296 
Faith in Every Footstep
by Wesley Banks
Happy New Year, LYF! members!
I hope my latest book review finds you all in good spirits, recovering from the holidays and settling back into some normalcy in your lives. May 2018 be another great year of health, fitness and adventures for you all and your dogs!
Over the holidays, I was finally able to purchase (and read) author Wesley Banks‘ two books, Faith in Every Footstep, and Hope in Every Raindrop (he’s currently working on a third in this “Faith, Hope, Love” series, Love and All That is Lost). I actually have a downloaded copy of Hope… which I’ve had for a while, but as I’m not much for reading a book on my laptop… or an e-reader (don’t even have one of those…) I didn’t make any progress actually reading it. Now that I’m back in my hometown, the town with the smallest library of anywhere I’ve ever lived, I’m going to have to buy any books I want to read. Thus, I splurged over the holidays and purchased used copies of 7 books I’ve had on my waiting list.
Faith in Every Footstep introduces us to 19-year-old Kyle Walker, a rookie musher from South Carolina who enters his team of sled dogs in a race across parts of Alaska. Kyle’s dogs, however, are not what most people have grown to expect, with regard to the typical sled dog team. No huskies or other mushing breeds/mixes here. Instead, Kyle’s dogs are a fictitious breed, the Carolina Grey, based on the U.S.’s own native dog breed, the Carolina Dog.
In this book, the author does a really great job of drawing the reader into the sled dog/mushing/race culture, while educating on the critical aspects of weather, dog care, and other race technicalities. He creates a great dynamic between a variety of characters, from the mushers, to the team vets, to the news reporters.
Don’t be fooled. This isn’t your typical sled dog adventure where the underdog wins it all. Eventually, everything that can go wrong does. Kyle struggles with the ever present “man vs. man” conflict, not to mention “man vs. the elements”, and “man vs. himself”. It’s a fast-paced, engaging read that I enjoyed very much.
Go ahead and pick up the sequel, Hope in Every Raindrop, while you’re at it. You’ll enjoy it, but it’s a very different book altogether. Don’t make the mistake I did, though. I read them out of order! I read Hope… first, based on the publishing date inside the books (as best as I can tell, it actually might have been written first, and then the author backtracked and wrote Faith…). Boy, was I lost when I opened the first book! I couldn’t tell if the book was flashing back to Kyle’s past, or if I’d missed something important somewhere along the way (I actually almost didn’t read it, I was that confused!). I have to admit, I felt that Hope… was a bit of a disappointment, very choppy and disjointed, lacking some much-needed background. Faith…, by comparison provided all of the continuity and maturity that the sequel lacks. A great adventure book and a fun, easy read.
Hope in Every Raindrop tells the story of young writer, Katie, struggling with writer’s block and under deadline to produce a new novel. She pretty much throws a dart randomly at a map, and takes off across the country in order to find a story to write. That little stunt takes her, of course, to South Carolina, where she encounters Kyle and his dogs.
I’ll let you discover the rest for yourself. Happy Reading!
Jennifer Casula is an AFAA certified group exercise instructor and personal trainer currently residing in Texas, where she teaches 12-15 classes/week at the local gym where she grew up honing her skills. She is in the process of buying the house next door to the one she grew up in, and doesn’t intend to move again anytime soon! She currently shares her home with two dogs (Airlie, a 7-year-old Australian Cattle Dog mix, and Kal, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, who will be 2 years old in February), two cats (both will turn 17 years old in the coming months), two turtles, and a husband. Her senior dog, Kansas, would have turned 14 years old this month, but passed away suddenly in November, after being Jennifer’s constant companion for 13 years.
