Owen Cross is a minor league catcher. Baseball is his life and has been since an early age. He dreams of catching in the Majors and has devoted his life to achieving this goal. Paul Cross, his dad, had been a pitcher, but threw out his arm, thus ending his career. Paul wants Owen to succeed where he failed.
Steal Away Home
By Billy Coffey
Thomas Nelson
January 2018
Owen has a very successful Little League and High school career. Winning a scholarship, he is off to college at Ohio State.
Michaela Dullahan lived in Shantytown. No one in Camden talks to a Shanty. Owen is drawn to Mickey the first time he sees her on the hill above his house. They continue to meet in secret and soon he is falling in love with her. They make plans to leave together when he leaves for college at Ohio State.
Things change between them the night of their graduation. A group of kids are in the farmer’s field and one of them decides to play chicken with the oncoming train. Mickey jumps on the tracks and pushes him off standing with open arms while waiting for certain death. Owen jumps on the tracks to save her and something happens that will change both their lives. Mickey becomes religious, starts preaching to the Shantytown residence, building a Church. She refuses to go with Owen when he leaves for college. She has work to do because time is so short.
Owen graduate from college, signs a contract with the Cubs and he is on his way, so he thinks, to realizing his dream. He does fairly well in the Minors. He gets a call to go to the Majors to possibly catch against the Yankees. Unfortunately he didn’t get a chance to bat. Disappointed he returned back to the Minors. Would he ever realize his dream?
The second call came for him to fly to New York possibly be a relief catcher. This could be his big break. Arriving in New York he had second thoughts and decided to go back home to Camden. Leaving his gear at the airport he caught the next plane home.
All his life he had focused on a dream that he knew was never going to come true. What he needed was what he had left behind in Camden.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and highly recommend it to all readers.
Mary Asher, the Golden Reviewer, is a founding book blogger for BookGateway.com and has generously provided this review. She describes herself as “an 88 year young great-grandmother and an avid reader.”
This book was provided by the publisher for review.