PRAISE FOR ROOMS
Rooms is one of the best books Ive read in the past year. If you like The Shack, I think youll like Rooms. If you didnt like The Shack, I bet youll love Rooms. This story got under my skin and its going to be there for a long, long time.
Randy Ingermanson, Christy award-winning author of Oxygen
Two words about Rooms: blown away! Its been a long time since I read anything this unique and truly creative and even longer since a book held me in such rapt attention during the moments I was reading itand long after.
Deborah Raney, author of Almost Forever and the Clayburn novels
If Frank Peretti had written The Shack, you might come close to having a book as great as Rooms. The twists and turns in the book took my breath away, but the most impacting journey was the one that drove me to examine my own soul. A heart-pounding, heart-altering read.
Tricia Goyer, award-winning author of twenty-one books, including The Swiss Courier
A good book should not only leave the reader satisfied, it should leave the brain buzzing. James L. Rubarts Rooms does just that. It is the kind of book that is not only read, but talked about long after the last page has been turned.
Alton Gansky, novelist of Enoch and Certain Jeopardy
Rubart has made his mark with Roomsa journey of a read, a spiritual adventure... a mystical page-turner that will impact your life.
Tosca Lee, author of Demon: A Memoir and Havah: The Story of Eve
A profound spiritual tale spun with imaginative flair. Im looking forward to more from Jim Rubart.
James Scott Bell, best-selling author of Deceived and Try Fear
Rooms is being touted as another great among Christian allegories, such as Dinner with A Perfect Stranger or The Shack. I believe it will be the twenty-first centurys Hinds Feet on High Places or Pilgrims Progress. Following Micahs journey of discovery is an eye-openingor perhaps I should say a soul-stirringexperience. As a Christian, I related to Micahs faith journey, his confusion, doubts, hot one moment and cold the next. But its Rubarts masterful imagination that makes this story so amazing. Rooms is not a chapter-a-night book; its a one-sitting read. A thrilling page turner, and a keeper in my permanent library. Rooms is the book I will purchase for Christmas gifts this year because Rooms is a must buy book. Novels Reviews and I give it five stars and our highest recommendation.
Ane Mulligan, editor of Novel Journey
Rooms haunted mein a good way, the kind of way that makes me re-ponder a freedom-giving God and the possibility of an unencumbered life. Clever, creative, freshJim Rubarts storytelling kept me turning pages, and his passion for his protagonists fractured heart endeared me.
Mary E. DeMuth, author of Daisy Chain and A Slow Burn
Fascinating characters, an action-packed plot, and a mansion with secrets of its own provide a winning combination in this complex novel of supernatural awakening. Rooms is a thought-provoking story that stayed with me long after I read the last page.
Kathryn Cushman, author of Leaving Yesterday
I couldnt come up with only one word to describe Roomsriveting, moving, entertaining, engaging, brilliant! A fantastic novel by a talented writer!
Camy Tang, author of Sushi for One? and Deadly Intent
Rooms is an extraordinary read. Its a time- and mind-bending exploration of regret and redemption, expertly crafted by a new and talented author. Part The Screwtape Letters, part The Shack, and all James Rubarts fresh, authoritative voice, Rooms manages to at once entertain and stir thoughts about how our temporal decisions affect us for eternity.
Robert Liparulo, best-selling author of Comes a Horseman, Germ, and the Dreamhouse Kings series
I love a book that changes my mind. This book changed my heart. Like Micahs house, Rooms wooed me into the story until I too walked through the doors of my heart to see long-buried lies and discover freeing truths. Powerful and riveting, Rooms is amazing life-changing fiction.
Susan May Warren, award-winning, best-selling author of Sons of Thunder
If youve ever prayed, God, take away the scales from my eyes and show me TRUTH... Rooms is not for the faint at heart. It is for the warrior inside all of us that is fighting to know our created being, the one God made for all eternity. It lifts the layers of this life, exposes them for what they are and then leaves us breathless in the knowledge of Gods relentless love. A modern day Pilgrims Progress but so much more. Rooms will grip you and challenge you, and then leave you longing for a restored and ransomed heart so that you can be all God created you to be.
Jamie Carie, author of Snow Angel, Wind Dancer, Loves First Light, and Angels Den
Copyright 2010 by James L. Rubart
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-0-8054-4888-7
Published by B&H Publishing Group,
Nashville, Tennessee
Dewey Decimal Classification: F
Subject Heading: SPIRITUAL LIFEFICTION \ SOULFICTION \ MYSTERY FICTION
Scripture quotations or paraphrases are taken from: the New American Standard Bible. Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission (www.Lockman.org). Also quoted are The Message, the New Testament in Contemporary English, 1993 by Eugene H. Peterson, published by NavPress, Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the King James Version.
Publishers Note: The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
For Darci
Table of Contents
What can you ever really know of other peoples soulsof their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands.
C. S. Lewis
CHAPTER 1
Why would a man he never knew build him a home on one of the most spectacular beaches on the West Coast?
Micah Taylor stared out the windows of his corner office overlooking Puget Sound, rapping his palm with an edge of the cryptic letter. Cannon Beach, Oregon. Right on the ocean and built by his great-uncle Archie, at least thats what the letter claimed. But of all the towns up and down Highway 101, why there? A place that repulsed him. A place he cherished. Both at the same time. Fate wouldnt be that cruel.
Shake it off. There couldnt really be a house in that spot with his name on it. No way. Not there. This was exactly the kind of practical joke his team might try to pull off. No one would ever accuse RimSofts culture of being stoic. If they only knew how badly theyd misfired this time. Micah sighed.