The Prodigal by Michael Hurley

Hi, everyone! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Michael Hurley's The Prodigal.

After a well-intentioned deception on a case is revealed, hot-shot lawyer Aiden Sharpe finds himself suddenly without a job. A helpful friend sends him to Father Marcus on Ocracoke Island, a man known for helping lost souls in more ways than one. Island life is much simpler for Aiden and here he begins to put the pieces of his world back together. Soon, however, Aiden and his friends become part of a mystery that's generations in the making.

Hurley's book is packed with interesting characters - from Aiden and Marcus to Ibrahim and Zoot and of course, Sarah. And we get to spend quite a bit of time with each of them, learning their histories and their quirks, before really getting into the meat of the story. I guess, though, that the characters could really be considered the "meat" of this particular story. The promised mystery doesn't so much come into play until about 2/3 of the way through the book, which I initially found a bit confusing. After all, we begin with a prologue from 1851 and then jump directly into Aiden's story spending the next two hundred pages (give or take) wondering when they'll come back into play and how they relate to the rest of the book.

They do say patience is a virtue and The Prodigal is a book where patience pays off.

All of that said, I would be doing the book a disservice if I led you to believe that any part of it is without merit or in any way something other than a joy to read. Because it is - a joy to read. Getting to know Aiden and the islanders, learning some of the ins and outs of island life and boating, all of it is incredibly descriptive and well written. Really, it's a wonderful character driven literary read that would stack up against the best of book club choices.  

Rating: 4/5

To see more stops on the tour, check out the official TLC tour page here. For more on Michael Hurley, you can like him on Facebook.

The author has dropped the e-book price of The Prodigal from $5.99 to $0.99 for this blog tour.