SATURDAY BOOK REVIEW: WAITING FOR SUNRISE by EVA MARIE EVERSON

Waiting for Sunrise: A Cedar Key Novel      

Eva Marie Everson

Sometimes finding your future means making peace with your past

Patsy Milstrap wishes she could leave her past behind. Though she tries to put on a brave front for the sake of her family, the wounds still ache, and the scars on her soul are still deeply felt. At her concerned husband's gentle insistence, they take a vacation from South Carolina on Cedar Key, an idyllic island on Florida's Gulf Coast. A week in paradise will do them good, he says.

When a familiar--and most unexpected--face greets her at a seaside restaurant, Patsy knows she can no longer run from the past. But what will opening old wounds mean? And what will the future hold?

With a large helping of Southern charm, Waiting for Sunrise is a touching story of family, young love, and the need for forgiveness. Eva Marie Everson expertly draws out the bittersweet moments of life, weaving them into a tale that will envelop your soul.

(from back cover)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR     

Eva Marie Everson is a successful speaker and the award-winning author of Things Left Unspoken, This Fine Life, and Chasing Sunsets. She is coauthor of the Potluck Club books and the Potluck Catering Club series. She lives in Florida.

READER REVIEW

Thirteen-year old Patsy Sweeny works her fingers to the bone along with her mother, Bernice Liddle to keep her stepfather Ira happy.  As happy as possible, that is. Ira, a traveling salesman, can be counted upon to beat someone when he is at home.  Bernice takes the worst of it, but Patsy and her two half-brothers, Harold and Billy have also been beaten.  When Ira looks at Patsy  one day and realizes she is no longer a child, Bernice realizes she has to send Patsy away.  Patsy is sent to the Buchwalds, the Christian couple who took in Patsy's brother Lloyd years before.  While living there, she makes a new life, falls in love with Gilbert Milstrap, marries him, and begins her adult life.  But after a few years, the strain of her early years takes its toll.  When a breakdown lands her in a hospital, Gilbert goes looking for her past.  

This novel did something I thought impossible.  It made me cry.  I  have always laughed at people who say they sit down to have a good cry over a novel, but this one did it.  I'm not saying I want to make it a habit, but this was truly a good novel.  Ira Liddle was the villain we love to hate (can we admit that in Christian fiction?), and in this it's well-deserved.  Bernice is a difficult mother to understand.  She not only tolerates so much, but she hides so much.  The saddest part, in my opinion, is when they move up the financial and social ladder, and the abuse continues.   It is just done quieter than before and covered up better.  The part where Ira worries about his social standing in the church they attend is unbelievable.  Every Sunday, somewhere there is a woman hiding a bruise and a man sitting next to her thinking he has everyone fooled.  Ms. Everson has shown the truth behind the facade of the American family.  This was an excellent novel that really made me think and, most of all, wouldn't leave me alone after I finished it.  That's the test of a novel.  That's a 5-star novel.

*Available June 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Revell. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."