"All This Time" by Melissa Tagg

 


Readers and fans have been waiting a long time for this final installment in the Walker Family series. We first met Raegan and Bear in the prequel novella Three Little Words, and followed them as minor characters through the stories of Walker siblings Kate, Logan, and Beckett. Raegan is the only Walker sibling who has never left home, keeping things lively in Maple Valley as she works her multiple part-time jobs, enjoys the wisdom of her father, and tries not to think too much about the man who broke her heart when he moved to Brazil.

South America has not been as kind to Bear as he was hoping it would be. Hounded by guilt and shame, this was supposed to be his way of righting wrongs from the past. The mission board sees otherwise, and Bear finds himself back in the States with the suggestion that he take care of the issues that keep coming up. Everything gets ten times more complicated when he's asked to take charge of his niece and nephew for a while. Knowing he at least has an apartment in Maple Valley, Bear loads the kids in his rental car and heads to Iowa.

Raegan has done her best to keep her life stable, with only a modicum of necessary change, and that seems to have helped her debilitating panic attacks. Her heart cries out for more, and Rae is beginning to explore her forgotten passion of making art. She is shocked when an opportunity comes up that would bring her art into the public eye, if she only has the courage to say yes. She needs courage for so very many things.

I think this may be my new favorite of Melissa Tagg's books, which is really saying something! Raegan's decision to go to counseling and address her anxiety plumbs deep into issues that readers might recognize from their own lives. This line about Bear really struck a chord in me: "Did he even know how to operate without carrying the world on his shoulders?" This novel is about two people with their fears, insecurities, desires, and dreams, and their journey to bridge the broken pieces of who they are into the people God is calling them to be. There's romance, there's suspense, there's Maple Valley charm. I loved this book and feel like all of Melissa's fans would feel the same way. We've been blessed to know the Walkers, and they will forever have a home on my bookshelf.