We are pleased to announce the publication of Michael’s latest book, Portals, by WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson.
Available online through either Barnes & Noble or Amazon, you can purchase Portals in hardcover, softcover, or eBook format. (Barnes & Noble has an elegant way of showing you inside the book.)
About the book
There are past events in the lives of nearly all of us that we wish we could change. Especially if the event was of the tragic kind, resulting in the death of someone we loved. Such trauma leads to soul-searching, of trying to find a reason that makes sense of something that strikes us as senseless.
Portals is a story that, at its core, explores a simple question: If I could change the past, would I?
It sounds like a simple question. As the novel reveals, it isn’t.
Wrapped up in the eight small words comprising this question is the sum of our personal world view, the lens through which we interpret the world around us. Key to our perspective is what we believe, or don’t believe, about God.
If we believe we are a product of time and chance working the miracle of life upon the material universe unguided, then how we respond to the question might be quite different from someone who contends that a loving God is actively concerned with our personal welfare ― in spite of any appearance to the contrary.
For Jesse, the focus character in the story, the question is no longer rhetorical. His wife, Ellen, drowned in Stillman’s Lake when the two were celebrating their sixth anniversary. Now, three years later, Jesse is given a chance to go back and change the events of that fateful day.
As with our own, Jesse’s world is made up of other people, each with their personal world view. Each with his or her own perspective on the questions we all have about where we came from, why we’re here, and what the future may hold. It is through the hearts, minds, experiences, words and actions of these other characters in the story ― some close to Jesse and others of more casual acquaintance ― that Portals gives the reader an opportunity to explore the merits of the varied opinions and either reinforce their own or, perhaps, consider something previously discounted.
A word of caution: no matter where you are on the spectrum, you won’t find Portals as predictable as you may suppose…
I was blessed to go away for a short time to relax, refresh and re-fuel. One of the best parts about time away is the ability to sit and read uninterrupted. This trip, I downloaded the Kindle version of “Portals” by Michael Kimball. Wow, what a great book! Even in it’s electronic version, it is an absolute page turner! The protagonists developed quickly into real people, not cardboard versions of cliche characters. The choices that they wrestled with were so evocative of the mental “what if’s” that we have in our thoughts so often. The end of every chapter was so exciting that I couldn’t wait to turn the page to see what was going to happen next. The imagery was painted in just the right amount of detail; I could actually picture the scenes as if the were reminding me of places that I’d been to, but had forgotten. The attention to key parts of each character’s personality, not just the ones that give you hints of what is to come, but the parts that show how complex the layers that each person is made of, gave such depth to the story. So many times in “christian fiction”, I feel like I’m reading a sanitized version of real life; the “Walton mountain”, so to speak, of how we Christian are supposed to live. This wasn’t that way. It was so true-to-life. Free and victorious, funny and serious, deep and still accessible, it had real life applications of the paradoxes of Truth that are found in real life.
Do yourself a favor; read “Portals”.
Thanks, Elizabeth, for your kind and thoughtful review!