Pilgrim.com asked authors for their three favorite reads of 2023. Mine included two nonfiction, no surprise there, but my favorite was historical fiction by Craig Matthews. I “met” Craig on LinkedIn, a comment about Goodreads, so I checked him out. I found his first two books on Amazon, but both words in the title, Immigrant Patriot, were what drew me to that one. What an incredible and surprising story it held!

Immigrant Patriot

What an incredible weaving of the immigrant journeys of a young couple, from Scotland and Italy, who meet in Utah after he survives WWI and the influenza pandemic. By then, she is a young widow, who has lost a young brother, her father, her husband in the war, and another brother to the pandemic.

But they have much more to face, from the deception and destruction of a rampant secretive religion. Remarkably, they escape and find redemption. Immigrant Patriot: One family’s struggle for freedom and faith in a world gone mad. is the almost unbelievable story of the author’s grandparents, written as a novel.

After Immigrant Patriot, I wanted to see what else Craig had written. I almost didn’t finish this next one, but I’m thankful I did: 

The Stars in the Sidewalk

Gritty and powerful. This story of the consequences and coping mechanisms of a broken past is so brutal but felt so authentic. Scooter owned up to his addictions and demons, but they piled on, even after he reached out for help.

A couple of scenes were so brutal that I quit reading. I went back because I needed to know what happened to one of the characters. I’m glad I did. This redemption story is made even more powerful by the author’s revelation at the end.

From Amazon: The Stars in the Sidewalk: My Demons Don’t Die Easy is a story of an every day working guy who gets triggered by a tragedy on the job site and is forced to face his many issues he had buried deep in his past. Ronnie is a young boy who is thrown back into the foster care system and is intrigued when a concrete crew shows up at his new foster home to put in a pool. Ronnie grows close to the guys over the course of the project. The concrete being poured is special and designed with hundreds of small stones that look ordinary during the day, but glow a bright blue at night, looking like stars.

Tragedy strikes the worksite and no one knows who is to blame. Is it the foster parents, the construction crew, young Ronnie, or the bully next door? Perhaps, something far more nefarious is at work. The tragedy sends Lawrence spiraling back to Angie, his beautiful counselor, after a four year hiatus. It also puts him back on the road to dealing with the issues he has kept buried since childhood. The negative patterns he thought he had killed had been active in keeping him a prisoner. He was convinced he was controlling them, but their influence was leaking a destructive power into his life. Our demons don’t die easy. Could he break their stranglehold at this critical point, or would he retreat back into his cave of addiction for another twenty years?

Addiction is a powerful force and its tentacles can build an impregnable fortress that are impossible to break out of in our own strength. Your demons don’t die easy and we wither under their relentless attacks. Lawrence had tried the faith thing many years before this event, but would God continue His silent routine in these areas of his life, or finally move? Could Lawrence ‘will’ his way out of this trap if God wouldn’t help, or was he stuck forever?

After I reviewed Stars, Craig asked if I’d have a look at a new manuscript. It’s his best one yet, so I was glad when he asked if I’d write an endorsement for it.

Cameron Lost

Compelling characters wrestle with their beasts, their demons, even while attempting to forgive and encourage others. Cameron does something unspeakable to his family, knowing it can never be forgiven–by God, by anyone. His journey through his misery takes him on a real one, hiking and hiding in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Known by his trail name as Caveman, this miserable misfit meets Butter, also a trail name, who runs a place called the Oasis. Theirs is such a compelling friendship, deeper than that.

Cameron Lost takes the reader on a journey through rich UP vistas while sharing in Cameron’s losses and terrible choices and misery to eventual redemption.

Craig is refreshingly candid and has a website, Craig Matthews Media. You can follow him on LinkedIn and and on Facebook, where he has shared videos of making his own maple syrup in his neck of Michigan. He’s also a foodie, so we’re are always tempted by his creative concoctions. Last month he shared videos while hiking part of the Appalachian Trail.

Craig’s 24-minute interview on PJNET.tv

Once I asked him if he has more books in the works. Yes, about fourteen of them! I’ve been able to read a couple of his as-yet unpublished manuscripts and the amazing beginning of another. He’s definitely an author to watch.