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"My name is Alice Ringwald, but the man who kidnapped me says that's a lie."

Thirteen-year-old orphan Alice Ringwald has no memory beyond six months ago. The only life she knows is the new one she's creating one day at a time with the loving couple that recently adopted her and gave her new hope. That hope, however, is shattered one night when she is abducted by a strange man. In a frantic FBI man hunt, the kidnapper vanished with Alice. So begins Water Walker, a modern-day parable that examines the staggering power of forgiveness, and reminds us that it's possible to live free of the hurt that keeps our souls in chains.

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Thirteen year old orphan Alice is abducted from her foster home one night by a man who claims to know her birth mother, who he says is very much alive and wants to see her daughter. He tells her he's there to take her to her real mother and oh yeah, Alice... your real name is Eden. Growing up believing she was orphaned, of course Alice is curious about who her real parents are or were, but this is not exactly how she imagined finding out about them! Still, curiosity gets the better of her and she reluctantly decides to do what this mysterious man wants, not only to answer her own questions but to protect her foster parents from potential harm if she fights this. Alice has no memory of her life prior to six months ago, so she figures anything can be a starting point to regaining her memories. What she doesn't expect is finding herself blindfolded and taken on a multi-state border road trip (traveling through South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee until she finally ends up at a sort of compound in a Louisiana swamp where she's told her real mother now lives.)

Because the kidnapping moves across state lines, the FBI gets involved, working from their South Carolina office. On a personal note, it was a little entertaining to see my own NC town play a part in this plot, something completely unexpected for me since it wasn't mentioned in the synopsis but cool in that I was very familiar with the area they travel through, having lived here 10+ years! Always fun to see or hear a shout-out to your stomping grounds :-) But anyway, when Alice arrives at this compound in Louisiana, she comes to realize that her birth mother is now part of some sort of religious cult, led by a man by the name of Zeke. Alice sees that Zeke lives in absolute luxury, while everyone else in the community essentially lives in hovels, having been convinced that Zeke's luxe surroundings are his reward for being God's spokesperson on Earth. Yeah... one of those. The more we get to know Zeke, the more we see he is one seriously twisted, self-serving guy... as cult leaders commonly are. But his influential ways have also seeped into other members of the community, namely this woman professing to be Alice's birth mother. By this point in the story Alice is now going by what she's told was her original name, Eden, so I'll switch over. 

Eden is told she is there to be the "pure little lamb" for the community, the one to help cleanse everyone of their dirty deeds. This role she's forced into (since meanwhile the FBI struggles to pinpoint her exact whereabouts) requires her to go through weekly "baptisms" which basically just amount to near-death drownings every Sunday morning carried out by her new mother, Kathryn. Kathryn also says that Eden's new home can be a complete paradise if she can come to accept the rules. Only problem is, the rules seem to be randomly made up on the whims of either Kathryn or Zeke, who tells Kathryn what Eden must do for the community for that day or week. Some of these bizarre rules include things like Eden not being allowed to sit on furniture, ANY furniture, for 2 days straight because it's deemed too unclean to touch her skin she needs to keep pure for everyone. Or having days where she cannot speak any words beginning with the letter "s" because "s" begins the word snake and snakes are biblical evil. More where that kind of crazy came from, so you can't help but feel for Eden. She desperately wants to escape but feels she can't leave after meeting mentally challenged Bobby, who she's told is her biological brother. Brother or not, she can see that he's not treated well, and her presence quickly becomes his only guaranteed safety net from being harmed. So Eden spends years in this hell that she's brainwashed into believing is a utopia, until one day the Outlaw character is able to reach her and help her find ways to push past the lies and find her center again. 

"Assuming you'll drown is why you drown."

~ The Outlaw breaking it down for Eden.

   This line, as simple as it is, just floored me. 

There were elements to this story, particularly with the way Kathryn spoke and acted out, her religious fervor, that I found really reminiscent of the grandmother in V.C. Andrews' Flowers In The Attic. And the way she treated Bobby, deeming him the "broken" child who was there to remind her of her sins, who just had to be tolerated. Broke my heart for him! For much of the story I just wanted to yell out to Eden Run, girl RUUUN! But then, Eden's in the middle of swampland, kinda tricky to get out of without some kind of plan. Thank goodness Dekker wrote in some redemptive scenes near the end! I also related to Eden in this story because we have a serious phobia in common, so the way Dekker writes the sensations she has when in contact with it were very true to life for me.

The lesson I pulled from Water Walker? Learn to let go of the hurts, fears and feelings associated with somehow being wronged in your life. At the end of the day, those negative feelings don't serve any good purpose for anyone. Sure it might temporarily spur you to work harder toward something, which is great, but once you get to that place that's infinitely better than where you came from, it doesn't benefit you to hold onto those negative emotions indefinitely. Instead, have faith in the fact that you are stronger than anything life throws at you. Have courage to say "Not only am I not MY past, but I'm also not here to make up for anyone ELSE'S past mistakes." Not an easy thing to do. I still struggle to remind myself every day, but the key is to keep reminding yourself that the past is the past, can't go back to it so it's best to learn from it and move forward to better the world you live in now the best you can, rather than dwell in what cannot be undone. 

FTC Disclaimer: Worthy Publishing kindly provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions above are entirely my own.