Before you remind me that I don’t like sporty things and of course I wouldn’t care for a book centered around baseball I have to tell you. Baseball is what saved this book for me. Yes, I don’t do sports. I don’t mind going to a stadium and watching a game. I don’t understand the game or really even care about the game but there’s something about the energy and spirit (if you will) about a crowd come together for something they are passionate about. And cuties. You are NEVER too old to appreciate cuties. That goes for almost any sport, almost. You will never see me curling up on the sofa to watch a sporty thing on TV, outside maybe like figure skating or gymnastics. Oh and diving, I really like platform diving. I picked up this book with the idea of a coming of age story between a love of baseball and a childhood sweetheart. I picked up this book thinking it was about leaving the game to come home and try to make things right. I didn’t get one whit of that.

I got a lot of baseball. A whole game intermingled with these weird random flashbacks to one summer a decade or so ago. The intermingling of here and now didn’t begin to make sense. Not only were they awkward and cut deeply into any flow the story could have developed I kept wandering where his head was. If you are in a big league, major league sorry to the ballers out there, game then why aren’t you focused on the game? Why aren’t you thinking about the game? Why aren’t you wondering if you will get your shot on the turf? That alone was awkward for me but then the back story didn’t even go with the game at all. Nothing made sense!

I didn’t get a feel for the characters. I got some interesting information about some name dropped players (I think they might be real players? I’ll have to ask Daddy). I got some interesting information about the logistics of baseball like the size of home plate and the dimensions of the infield. All things I didn’t know. But I have no idea what really happened with Micky. Throughout the story, at the train, or even at her end. I haven’t the faintest idea why Owen went back to the hill. I didn’t understand his motivation for a lot of things. This book left things so oddly open that I’m not sure if he was like an old dog going home to die on the hill or to commit suicide or just to live there under the tree in seclusion. There was not one bit of connection for me with this story. I desperately wanted there to be, the synopsis was so deeply intriguing. The truth is, baseball saved this book for me. And if that ain’t an oxymoron I don’t know what is.

I was provided a complimentary copy of this book by NetGalley. I was not compensated for this review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. I was not required to write a positive review.

Owen's dad wants him to have the life he wanted. Playing baseball in the majors. His dad pushes hard, practice every evening. Fortunately, Owen loves the game. He also craves his father's approval.
As a kid, Owen went to the hill his friends told him to stay away from. There he met, Micky, a girl from Shanteytown. Everyone looks down on the people living in Shantey as low class. Owen and Micky meet frequently and Owen loves her almost as much as baseball. They keep their friendship a secret. Owen's dad is the school janitor, but Owen is accepted by the 'in' crowd due to his ability in playing baseball.
Owen has plans to take Micky with him when he leaves for college. But, at the end of their senior year, something happens that forever changes Micky and her desires change. As Micky frequently reminded Owen, sometimes you love something that can't love you back. Owen learned that lesson late.
While I enjoyed parts of the book, I am not a baseball fan, so I struggled to get through some of those parts. I do feel the story was well written.
I was given a free ecopy of this book by the publisher, Thomas Nelson and Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have read and enjoyed several of Billy Coffey's other books. This book was a little different than his other books. It is still a very deep book that challenges your beliefs.

Owen is a young boy who moves into a town that neighbors with a very poor, and shunned village called "shantytown". Even though people in his new town and the people of shantytown don't mingle, he falls in love with a shantytown girl named Marty. No one ever knows of their relationship. They meet at a hill in between their towns each evening. Owen has two loves - Marty and baseball. The story of Owen and Marty is told between innings of a very important baseball game. In the end, Marty realizes that what he loves is not really enough.

I don't really enjoy baseball, so I have to admit that I skimmed over some of the baseball scenes. Even though I skipped some of these chapters, I found the connection between baseball and the story of Owen and Marty very intriguing.

I feel like there are a lot of underlying spiritual connections that one can get from this book, the reader really needs to have time to read and think.

Even though I enjoyed the book, I felt like the character of Owen could have been developed a little more. Either I just didn't connect with him, or I feel like I didn't know him very well.

This was a book that I really wanted to like but could not get into it. The back and forth from past to present was very hard to follow. I just lost interest.

Unfortunately, not all books are for everyone. One person may love a book while another may read the same book and feel that book is not for them. That was the case with this book. I really wanted to like it. The premise sounded interesting:

"Owen Cross grew up with two loves: one a game, the other a girl. One of his loves ruined him. Now he’s counting on the other to save him."

Owen loved Micky from the moment he saw her. They were kids from the opposite side of the track. He was from a middle-class family and she lived in shantytown. He is a baseball star destined for the big leagues and eventually he leaves Mickey for the dugouts and fame. Again, sounds great right? When you give up one dream, what happens to the other?

I found the writing to be all over the place and hard to keep track of at times. This really hindered my ability to enjoy the book. One thing that I liked was the Author's unique way of having "chapters" but called them "innings" in keeping with the baseball theme.

I also think this book tried to be too many things all at once - a coming of age story, a love story, a baseball story, a story of faith/religion, a story of losses. I think if it would have just dedicated itself to one or two issues I would have enjoyed the book better.

There were several times I almost put this book down and did not finish. It was just hard to get into, keep my attention and at the end, I really felt meh about it. There were some beautifully written passages but not enough to win me over.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson-Fiction and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book moved at the pace of a baseball game—slow. While I’ve never been a baseball fan because the sport moves so sluggish after a season of watching the speed of hockey players on the ice, I can appreciate what athletes pour into their sports.
But Steal Away Home was difficult to get into. During the course of Owen Cross’s first major league game, he reminisces about the girl he once loved. Instead of chapters, the book has “innings”—top and bottom with too many flashbacks throughout.
None of the characters (with perhaps the exception of Owen’s mother) were very likable. I could blame that on the fact most of them were teenagers but even the adults felt selfish and self-serving. While Own and Michaela had a decent start, as I got further in the book, I liked them together less and less.
I made it to the end of the book, wanting to know the mystery of what exactly happened to Michaela (which was never answered) only to be confronted by another mystery and an ending that was less than satisfying.
Yet, Billy Coffey’s descriptions of small town life in an Appalachian community and the divide between poor and poorest are spot-on. There is some depth of insights into humanity and the realization that giving up one dream for another sometimes leads to regret. That ordinary people can do extraordinary things and that our heroes can disappoint us.

Disclosure statement:
I receive complimentary books for review from publishers, publicists, and/or authors, including NetGalley. I am not required to write positive reviews. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Initially I had trouble getting into this story because I'm not typically a baseball fan, but I soon realized you don't need to understand--or be a fan of the game--to appreciate this hauntingly bittersweet love story between Owen and Mickey and Owen and baseball. Alternating between past and present--Owen's childhood coming-of-age story and a single game as an adult--the novel reveals the heartbreakingly lovely meeting of Owen and "wrong side of the tracks," Mickey as they meet, form a friendship, and fall in love regardless of the differences in their upbringing. But one night changes everything for Mickey and things go south for their relationship as family values intervene and no one sees the other side clearly. Can Owen leave for college and salvage the relationship or have things gone too far? Poignant and beautifully written, this novel speaks to love and hate, despair and redemption. It's a magical read!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital ARC of this book. This book is true to its title description. The reader won't be disappointed when reading this book.

Steal Away Home was great. The story reeled you into the lives of the characters, and didn’t release you until it was over.

This book took a long time for me to get through. While Coffey has a magical writing style, it just never really captured me. Owen was not a very likeable character, and because so much of the story focuses on him, the book left me wishing for more. What point was the story really trying to get across. The chapters written as if we were at a baseball game was a unique approach, but the past and present were confusing in places and the ending felt rushed with too much left unsaid.

Thank you for the advanced copies. Things I liked about the book? The title and cover. But I had a very hard time liking this book in every other way. I am not a baseball fan and I felt it was way too much baseball vernacular that I didn't understand which made the book extremely boring and hard to get through it. Maybe it was too much baseball jargon and perhaps if it was written in more layman's terms I could actually understand what was going on it would have been better? Not sure. The repeating of the spoken words or thoughts in bold, got really annoying and seemed pointless. This should have been a love story with a background of baseball but it was more baseball with a little love story.

Coffey weaves this gripping coming-of-age tale into the span of minor league Owen Cross’s taxi ride and baseball game at Yankee Stadium. His luminous descriptions and turns of phrase had me on the edge of my seat in ways that a real baseball game has never done before. The tension between past and present hums and threatens to burn like an electric fence. I don’t often underline passages from novels, but I found myself stopping to savor and remember words the characters say.

Set in Virginia in the late 80s and 90s, the book looks at poverty and class in small-town Appalachia. I lived in the hill country of West Virginia in the mid 70s, and once we moved out West, I think I forgot about the prejudice and class order—assuming that surely those attitudes had moved on as I had moved on. Apparently not. Poverty crushes, whether modern-day or decades ago.

But the story doesn’t just paint a picture of poverty, with baseball as an analogy for life and faith (although it does do those things). It left me moved, but unsatisfied—with the author, and with myself. I like tidy endings when I close the covers of a book. It took me hours after I turned the last page to figure out what I think the author wanted to say by ending the book the way he ended it. But the ending and the conclusion leaves me wanting to sit down with Billy Coffey and argue with him (over a cup of tea in a genteel way, of course).

I don’t want to give anything away, so suffice it to say that you don’t have to love (or even like) baseball in order to love this book. But like the love of any sport, you might feel as if your team lost when you close the covers of the book—but still love them anyway.

Coffey writes, as usual, straight from the heart. All of his stories are completely different, without that common denominator we often see in even the best author. A story centered around the game of professional American baseball, Steal Away Home is a foray into the soul of man, woman, religion and most especially the South. By the top of the ninth inning, you know you are sitting at the foot of a literal giant. He plays a symphony on your heartstrings, and shines light on emotions as yet unseen.

Billy Coffey has moved to the top of my must have southern author list.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Billy Coffey, and Thomas Nelson Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

Steal Away Home by Billy Coffey
I am a fan of Billy Coffey and have read several of his previous books. This one, however, was not my favorite. I am not a baseball fan and the main character was a baseball player looking back upon the happenings of his life in his senior year of high school. The story drifts between the past and present. I read the parts that were not about baseball. It was written in his usual style and also had his usual touch of the supernatural. Because of the subject matter, it didn’t keep my attention and I had to force myself to finish it. I received a free copy from the publisher for my honest review.

Steal Away Home is everything you could possibly want from a Billy Coffey book. Not since Snow Day and Paper Angels has he written such a meaningful, life changing page turner. Its setting, unlike the majority of his other offerings, is not Mattingly, but a near by seemingly similar locale, thus making it seem somewhat a fresher environment. Coffey also used the technique of intertwining two different time periods which gave the story deeper meaning to the reader.

Although this story is heavy on baseball, you do not have to be a fan of the game to read this book. If you liked Paper Angels and Snow Day, then this is definitely the book for you. If you have never experienced the life changing effects of Coffey's books, then this is definitely the place to start. This is one of those books you want to buy for everyone you know!

Made it about 40% in before calling it quits. It had a "For Love of the Game" type of a vibe, but with a rookie player flashing back to high school. From the start I struggled with Billy Coffey's writing style and I never felt connected to the characters or setting. I'm not one to DNF a book, but I just couldn't make myself keep reading. Unfortunately, not for me.

This is tough book to review, I'll get right to it. I found it difficult to read. By that I mean the author took us from past, to present, to past/present and thrown in maybe a thought about the future but rarely. It was difficult to follow.
The story between Mickey and Billy equally as difficult. I liked Mickey. I liked that she told him things he didn't want to hear. But again, we get glimpses of her, the church, the father. His parents.
For lack of better word the book lacked cohesiveness. I've read many books that run from past/present and in multiple directions but were easier to follow.
Billy wasn't very likable. I can add that to the difficulty. He didn't hold my interest. I like sports books, but ... again. At risk of being redundant.
I felt like I was being generous with the 3 stars, that because of the interesting timing of the authors insertion of short biblical lines.
I really wanted to like this book. But I'm afraid it fell quite short.


**arc from NetGalley and publisher in exchange for a fair review**

Baseball and religion have at least one thing in common: devotion. A very focused, and driven devotion to something pure and holy. A devotion held by those whose lives revolve around baseball. Or religion. Baseball really is more like a religion, than anything else. A core group of people with a somewhat single-minded devotion who believe in one way being the right way, more often than not. It is a religious experience to hear that sound, the sound of a ball being hit in just that perfect way and you know it is heaven-bound. Rapture!

”I wonder how many steps I have taken to arrive at this place. Years of fear and doubt and trying flood me, the faces of those I’ve lost along the way, but as I move from dirt to grass so thick and soft my spikes sink to the ankles, I know I belong here.

“I have always belonged here.”

Baseball. The love of the game, and how it shapes you from childhood on, becomes an integral part of you, a love that defines you. A love that drives you, makes decisions for you, requires discipline from you. Beyond baseball, this is a coming-of-age story, a story of second chances, a story of the expectations of parents and the weight of these expectations inherited by their children, especially when their parent’s failed dreams become theirs by proxy. Born to fulfill their parent’s failed dreams. A story of first love, of a town divided, of the haves vs. the have-nots. A story of the healing power of forgiveness, given and received.

Through lyrical prose, this story is shared through Owen’s narration, as both a young boy in a small town near Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Later, as Owen draws near to the end of his 20s, on a day he is brought up from Double-A for a shot in the Major Leagues. While he waits for his turn, his mind wanders back to his younger years, reminiscing about the young girl, Micky, that he has never forgotten, the place and time where both of their lives changed.

”All our lives stood before us, magic as unrecognized as water to a fish because the magic was everything.

“Then she came, and everything changed.”

There’s a darker and mysterious side to this story, as well, in an area where Southern spirituality abounds, this was somewhat reminiscent of some of Wiley Cash’s This Dark Road to Mercy another novel where baseball is a theme, and A Land More Kind Than Home with a dash of the hauntingly beautiful prose and sense of place in Christopher Swann’s Shadow of the Lions.

I really loved this, Coffey’s writing is heartbreakingly lovely, his words flow as if they were heaven-sent, and his story reads as if it were Destiny’s design for it to be shared. We all need to have dreams; we all need to believe that we are a part of something bigger than our lives. One of the things I loved in this book wasn’t even in the story, itself, but rather in the Publisher’s Note at the beginning:

”I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green eld, in the sun.”

Amen.


Pub Date: 08 Jan 2018

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Thomas Nelson Fiction

2.5/5 stars.

I liked the fact that a big part about this was about baseball. I really enjoy watching baseball, so I thought I would like reading this book. And I did like the baseball parts of this book. Besides the baseball I liked Micky in the beginning of the book, but that was about it.

I did not really like Owen. The story line of his past was really confusing, I didn’t get nor like the story of Micky.
While reading this book I thought I was reading 3 different times. But now I think you were reading about his past, him now and sometimes the him now thought about the past. Or something. It was confusing. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was reading about his current baseball game or one in the past.
I do think people can like this, but it just wasn’t for me.