Touch: A Novella

Written by Randall Wallace

Andrew Jones was once one of the few surgeons in the world to have that rare, God-given ability called The Touch. But after failing to save his young fiance, Faith, at the scene of a car accident, Jones abandons his gift and shuns the operating room. Lara Blair owns a Chicago-based biomedical engineering company developing a surgical tool that will duplicate precisely the movement of a surgeon's hands, reducing or eliminating failed surgical procedures. Lara has pursued the best surgeons in the world to test this surgical tool, and all of them have failed. As Lara pursues Jones' skill for her project, Jones' stubborn resistance cracks, and he begins to open up to her about the wounds that still haunt him. But when Jones discovers the urgency behind Lara's work, he must choose to move beyond his past. As each is forced to surrender secret fears, they are bonded together through the lives of the people Jones serves and by the healing secret that Faith left behind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mission Audio
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781610453004

Randall Wallace

Randall Wallace is the author of seven novels, including the New York Times bestseller Pearl Harbor. He has written four feature films -- We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor, The Man in the Iron Mask, and the 1995 Academy Award-winner Braveheart -- and produced and directed We Were Soldiers and The Man in the Iron Mask. For his work on Braveheart, he received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay as well as numerous other accolades, including Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. In addition to his work as a filmmaker and author, Randall Wallace is the founder of Hollywood for Habitat for Humanity. This entertainment industry partnership with Habitat for Humanity works to garner financial donations, publicity, and volunteer involvement in support of Habitat for Humanity's goal of eliminating poverty housing worldwide. Wallace has two sons and lives in Los Angeles.

[Melissa Wickboldt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Exceptional in every way. Just what my soul needed .

[lovejoy_rat · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I usually don't go in for inspriational fiction, and this one has its trite moments as these types of books are prone to have. However, I did enjoy the medical background that gave this book a little bit more of a solid footing, and the locations were a nice distraction. Usually books that have anything to do with Appalecha are terribly depressing, but this book depicted the mountain people found there as poor but strong and respected members of their community. The heartwarmers sometimes are a touch too fuzzy, and the romance was rushed and slightly not believeable, but this makes for a light cozy read with a Christian touch.

[nadinec.keels · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had some idea--but then again, little idea at all--what I was in for when I picked up The Touch by author Randall Wallace, the story of a young, gifted surgeon who refuses to operate anymore after a personal, fatal tragedy.

I didn't know until right before I started reading that this novella is by the screenwriter of the 1995 film Braveheart, but I didn't go on reading with Braveheart expectations or qualifiers in my brain. I just took the story as it came, and although this may not be the place to make any cases on the matter, I would encourage all readers who normally steer clear of novellas because of their "too short" or "no depth" stigma NOT to prejudge and pass up this book on that basis. It's too nuanced, too raw, too beautiful, too powerful of a story to overlook.

Sometimes, less is indeed more, and the author does more here than just relay a little medical tale. Admittedly, in the beginning, some of the wording and punctuation choices had me thinking the read might turn out to be on the pedestrian and even corny side, but I was proven wrong. Here, medicine and surgery become a song; they're beauty and art, faith and genius, trial and triumph. The whole story is all of these things, both within and outside of the operating room.

It's an excellently woven testament to life and love, and though I couldn't absorb it all in one read-through, what I have absorbed this time is enough to mark this book as one of my all-time favorites.
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I received a complimentary copy of this book, for which I've given an honest review, through a rewards program from the publisher. I received no monetary compensation.

[ddracer7040 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books I've read in a long time. Such a beautiful and hopeful storyline. Very inspirational and a must read. The characters of Jones and Blair are so compelling and heart warming.
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Andrew Jones was once one of the few surgeons in the world to have that rare, God-given ability called The Touch. But after failing to save his young fiancée, Faith, at the scene of a car accident, Jones abandons his gift and shuns the operating room.

Lara Blair owns a Chicago-based biomedical engineering company developing a surgical tool that will duplicate precisely the movement of a surgeon’s hands, reducing or eliminating failed surgical procedures. Lara has pursued the best surgeons in the world to test this surgical tool, and all of them have failed.

As Lara pursues Jones’s skill for her project, Jones’s stubborn resistance cracks, and he begins to open up to her about the wounds that still haunt him. But when Jones discovers the urgency behind Lara’s work, he must choose to move beyond his past. As each is forced to surrender secret fears, they are bonded together through the lives of the people Jones serves and by the healing secret that Faith left behind.