His Road Home

Starred review from August 25, 2014
Richland (First to Burn) packs a novel’s worth of plot and characterization into this tantalizing novella. Sgt. Reynaldo Cruz fibbed to his fellow soldiers about being engaged to a woman he barely knows. When an explosion catapults him from serving as a medic in Afghanistan to recovering from a double amputation at Walter Reed Hospital outside of Washington, D.C., his supposed fiancée is called to his bedside. Dr. Grace Kim, a marine biologist, doesn’t even remember meeting Reynaldo. Unwilling to expose his deception given the circumstances, she heads to Walter Reed to figure out why this man connected himself to her. What follows is a raw, emotional story of two embattled people slowly building a life together. Painful self-examination is rewarded with a deeper understanding of what it means to love and be loved in return. The story’s only flaw is that it ends far too soon, leaving readers desperate for more of Richland’s powerful descriptions and deep characterization.