Moon Over Edisto by Beth Webb Hart
Synopsis:
Edisto Island was where it all came apart. Can the Bennett girls ever be whole again?
Once, they were the happiest family under the sun, crabbing and fishing and painting on beautiful Edisto Island in South Carolina’s lowcountry. Then everything went wrong, and twenty years later the Bennett family is still in pieces. Mary Ellen still struggles to understand why her picture-perfect marriage came apart. Daughter Meg keeps a death grip on her own family, controlling her relationships at a distance. And eldest daughter, Julia, left it all behind years ago, forging a whole new life as an artist and academic in Manhattan. She’s engaged to an art dealer and has no intentions of returning to Edisto. Ever.
Then an emergency forces Julia back to Edisto to care for her three young half-siblings. She grudgingly agrees to stay a week. But there’s something about Edisto that changes people. Can Julia and her fractured family somehow manage to come together again under that low-hanging Edisto moon?
The past has come knocking on Julia’s door. Can she summon the courage to answer betrayal with love?
Thoughts:
As I began reading Moon Over Edisto, I was quickly swept away to South Carolina. Beth Webb Hart does a wonderful job capturing the sights and sounds of the Lowcountry. The novel is different from most, in that it is written from the perspectives of the individual characters in the story. Reading from this perspective allows you, as the reader, to more readily identify the complexity of each of the characters and better understand the thoughts and feelings of each individual. Julia and the Bennett family must let go of the hurt that has gripped them for so long and move forward in different directions.
Moon Over Edisto is a touching and heartwarming story of a family’s journey toward healing and forgiveness. As you close the book, you will continue to think about the lives you have become so immersed in and envision where their journeys take them. Moon Over Edisto is a beautifully written novel and I highly recommend it!
Beth Webb Hart, a South Carolina native, is a best-selling author. With a B.A. in English Literature from Hollins University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, Hart serves as an inspirational speaker and creative writing instructor at conferences, retreats, schools, libraries and churches across the country, and she is the recipient of two national teaching awards from Scholastic, Inc. and the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. She lives with her husband, composer Edward Hart, and their family in Charleston.
For more information about Beth Webb Hart and her novels, visit: www.bethwebbhart.com.
She also blogs every Tuesday at www.southernbelleviewdaily.com.
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