Winter Haven

by Athol Dickson

Published by Bethany House (2008)
336 pages

It’s been thirteen years since Vera Gamble’s autistic brother ran away. Thirteen years of cloaking herself in guilt, when the dreaded call finally comes.

Vera’s older brother, Siggy, has been found. Dead. Washed up on a remote island off the coast of Maine, thousands of miles from her home in Dallas.

What she finds when she travels to the island, named Winter Haven, belies all reality. Her brother didn’t age a day after he ran away.

Does this mist-shrouded island, haunted with a deadly past, hold the secret to Siggy’s eternal youth? Will Vera uncover its secret, or will she become the island’s next victim?

Author Athol Dickson has crafted a complex novel of doubt, faith, and truth by appealing to our fears and superstitions. Then he illuminates the truth behind the terror. Winter Haven’s gothic, supernatural storyline is reminiscent of the writings of Frank Peretti or Ted Dekker, but Dickson’s intricate plotting and artistic prose is comparable to the literary works of Charles Martin and Dale Cramer.

It’s a novel I will definitely read again, this time opening my eyes to the truth revealed along the way.