Review: ROOMS by James Rubart
Micah Taylor owns RimSoft, a rising star in Seattle’s computer software world. He’s poured everything into success trying to prove to his father (and himself) that he is somebody. One day a letter arrives from his great-uncle’s estate, telling him that a huge house has been built for him on the Oregon coast, a location Micah has blocked from his mind since his mother’s drowning years before.
When he checks out the house, determined to put it on the market at the earliest opportunity, he is strangely drawn to it. It seems a magical place, with rooms that appear, then disappear. Rooms that seem to have specific purposes in helping Micah face his past…and his future. Rooms that represent his soul.
This novel is not the kind of suspenseful that its ‘dark’ cover seems to suggest. However, as Micah’s realities shift (literally), I found myself immersed in the story, unsure of how Jim Rubart was going to pull the threads together. It is a novel that will make you think…and make you long for a closer relationship with God.
The themes of Rooms emphasize the many barriers, such as pursuit of wealth, that we can place between us and truly knowing God. I Timothy 6:9-10 (CEV): “People who want to be rich fall into all sorts of temptations and traps. They are caught by foolish and harmful desires that drag them down and destroy them. The love of money causes all kinds of trouble. Some people want money so much that they have given up their faith and caused themselves a lot of pain.”
Jim Rubart loves God, his wife, his boys, writing, speaking, playing guitar, and golf, in that order. He dabbles in photography and owns a marketing company called Barefoot Marketing, a full service ad agency, marketing, and consulting firm for businesses and authors.
I picked up Rooms when it was offered as free Kindle download (yay iPhone reading!) awhile ago, then responded to a tweet by the publisher, B & H Publishing and won a paper copy as well. I’m glad. I want to loan this one out.
In 2008, Jim Rubart was a finalist in the speculative fiction category of the Genesis contest (as was I). Now he is a published author with two more books scheduled for release. Congrats, Jim!