The May 2020 issue of Midwest Book Review's Small Press Bookwatch Index features a review of Nephi's Courage by Rory McFarlan.
Buy it on Amazon now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082HCDV52
The full text of the review:
Nephi's Courage: Story of a Bad Mormon
Rory McFarlan
Independently Published
9781734179408, $12.99, PB, 308pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: Nephi Willard is a practicing Mormon who loves God and his church. He grew up in Happy Valley, the center of LDS life in Utah, and faithfully served a mission. The perfect Mormon life would be his -- if not for the fact that Nephi is gay.
Being homosexual has put him at odds with his church leaders. No matter how well Nephi obeys the commandments, he doesn't seem to fit in at church, and his desire to follow the Mormon rules makes it difficult to fit in with the gay community. While he tries to reconcile his Mormon side with his gay side, Nephi is navigating two worlds in a struggle to understand himself.
When a new love interest introduces him to possibilities he never imagined, Nephi must decide whether to embrace his nature or his faith, which takes this religious gay man on a journey that is both devastating and beautiful.
Critique: A deftly written story that, while a work of fiction, quite accurately portrays the condition of being a gay man in a Mormon dominated society. An engaging and emotionally powerful novel by an author with an impressive flair for the kind of narrative driven storytelling that emotionally rivets the readers full attention from cover to cover, "Nephi's Courage" is the kind of story that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf. While very highly recommended for community library Contemporary General Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Nephi's Courage" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $2.99).