About the Book

In a similar vein to The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews or Dinner with a Perfect Stranger by David Gregory, The Baggage Handler is a contemporary story that explores one question: What baggage are you carrying?

Three people take a flight that will change their lives forever.

Fresh off a run-in with his wife, harried businessman David disembarks the plane angry and impatient.

Gillian thought she would be more excited about coming to her niece’s wedding, but she is just hoping to survive.

Malcolm has gambled everything on this trip to start his fledgling artistic career. To him, failure means working in hardware in what his father calls “a real job.”

After each picks up the wrong suitcase, they make their way to a mysterious baggage depot in a deserted part of the city. There they meet the Baggage Handler, who shows them there is more in their baggage than what they have packed.

A simple baggage mix-up at the airport is more than an inconvenience when it forces three people to face the baggage they are unknowingly carrying around.

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About the Author

David Rawlings is an Australian author, and a sports-mad father-of-three who loves humor and a clever turn-of-phrase. Over a 25-year career he has put words on the page to put food on the table, developing from sports journalism and copywriting to corporate communication. Now in fiction, he entices readers to look deeper into life with stories that combine the everyday with a sense of the speculative, addressing the fundamental questions we all face.

More from David

Watch the trailer: https://vimeo.com/250255594

Check out David’s Padlet page to follow The Baggage Handler: https://padlet.com/david_rawlings/TheBaggageHandler

The book is similar in content to a few others I have read. I did enjoy the book and meeting the three main characters. We all have baggage we hold on to and don't realize how it slows us down in life. I loved how the author took three different characters and allowed us to watch them unpack their baggage with surprise and confusion. I often wonder how many people have picked up the wrong baggage and realized it after they left the airport? For each character there is an urgency to retrieve the right baggage and scurry on their way.

It is easier to stuff your baggage with regret, anger, low self-esteem and other emotions and forget about them. What we don't realize is that someday those forgot about emotions will unpack at a time we are not ready for them. As each character is sent to a place to pick up their correct baggage, we see each one open up the heavy burdens they have been carrying. It reminds me of a backpack filled with bricks. You carry it around because you don't want to put it down and see what's inside . When you decide you cant go on, you unburden yourself of the baggage and there waiting is all the baggage called anger, deceit, forgiveness, pride and many other things that stare you right in the face.

As you read this story, immerse yourself in it and allow God to take your burdens away. The lies we have believed and the struggles we have encountered have loaded us down and it is time to be set free . As the Baggage Handler explains to each of the three people, they must be able to let go of the baggage once they give it to him. How many times have we told God that we give our troubles to Him, then pick it up again? At the end of the book are questions that are worth looking at. These questions are for you to examine yourself and see what baggage you need to get rid of. The choice is ours to make: do we want to get rid of baggage that leads us to joy and freedom or hold on to it and continue to be unhappy ?

I received a copy of this book from Celebrate Lit. The review is my own opinion.