Sunrise on The Battery

According to Beth Webb Hart, author of Sunrise on The Battery, "With every novel I write, I start with a question to which I desperately want the answer.  I write to the heart of that question, often revealing my own tensions, doubts and fears, and I always find that God meets me in the midst of the narrative, takes my hand (as well a the characters') and shows us they way to go."

After reading David Platt's book Radical:  Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, Beth began asking herself these questions:
What would it look like if we really loved each other - if we had no inhibitions about sharing our faith and our very lives with a hurting world?  How would we really spend our time and our money?  And what impact would this have on our communities, our country and the world?

Radical uncovered blind spots in her own life and helped Beth to fully imagine just where her characters' uninhibited faith might take them.  The story in her latest novel Sunrise on The Battery was born.

Synopsis of the Book:
Mary Lynn Scoville has everything anyone could desire - a handsome husband, three beautiful daughters and a ticket into the social elite of Charleston, S.C.  But after a miraculous answer to a prayer on her behalf, Mary Lynn decides to pray that her husband will discover the faith she loves.  But when her prayers are answered, she finds her world turned upside down and is forced to deal with the idols she has created in her own life.
Jackson Scoville is a man on a mission.  Growing up deprived of the finer things in life, he wants more for his children.  His mission is to give his girls the best - a top-rate education, exposure and immersion in the fine arts and frequent opportunities to see the big world.  "Not just education baby - cultivation", he is known to say.  But when he discovers the truth of Scripture, his focus takes a quick turn - a turn his family may not like to take.

My thoughts about the book:
I wanted so much to like this book.  And I appreciate very much the premise from which Ms Hart was writing.  I'm just not sure she pulled it off so well.  To be honest much of the book was really boring.  I did appreciate that the story flips back and forth and is told from the perspectives of the mother, father, and oldest daughter.  However, the meat of the story gets lost in all the details in which Ms Hart describes the South Carolina area.  Jackson's "conversion" doesn't happen until about three-fourths way into the book, and the ending was anti-climatic.

Sunrise on the Battery, can be ordered from Amazon.com by going HERE.

Thank you to Audra with the B&B Media Group for sending me a complimentary copy of the book for the purpose of review!

Blessings,