Moon Over Edisto by Beth Webb Hart

Book Description:  The past has come knocking on Julia's door. Can she summon the courage to answer betrayal with love?

Julia’s best friend, Marney, broke up her parents' marriage years ago. Now Marney shows up at her Manhattan apartment, asking the impossible—come home to Edisto Island to care for the half-sisters and half-brother she has never known. Marney, recently widowed, has lung cancer. There's no other family to care for the children while she’s in the hospital following surgery.

Julia loathes Marney. But if she doesn’t step in, her own mother—who has never gotten over the divorce—will be called upon to take care of the children. So she heads to South Carolina to keep the peace.

On Edisto, she begins to reconnect with the place and the people and she’s been running from her whole adult life. There’s the local doctor who once stole a kiss from her on that very beach, and the siblings she’s never known—especially the sister with selective mutism named Etta who’s the keeper of nearly every family secret . . . including the very one that just might bind-up Julia’s long-since shattered heart.

My Thoughts:  First of all, I had to look up the word Edisto . . . Edisto is one of South Carolina's sea islands.  Wow!  I learn something new almost every time I read a book.  Love that one can learn facts from fiction!

Now, Julia seems to have it all and on her way to a happy future.  And like our lives, when all is going too well, it all comes to halt.  Maybe, just maybe, this is a life lesson for us not to get too comfortable in our lives.

God  has a way of bringing forgiveness to us.  

Then it seems that Julie is like a lot of oldest children...very responsible.  So, when Marney comes knocking on her door, Julia does what she deems right ,and well, so her mother won't have to face the grief again.

This is a "different" kind of read for me...there are many different view points.  Too be honest I found this a little confusing at times.  It's an interesting way to write but not my favorite way to read.

The story line is interesting.  Etta's selective mutism is a psychiatric disorder in which a person who is normally capable of speech is unable to speak in given situations or to specific people. Selective mutism usually co-exists with shyness or social anxiety.  It seems that Etta's disorder speaks volumes of this family's disfunction.

There always seems to be "that" aunt who takes in the children and helps them over the hurdles.  In this story, it's Aunt Dot.  Aunt dot is a loving, caring person who seeks to help others do better.

This was an okay read maybe because I had trouble getting past the different viewpoints.

*This book was provided for review by BookSneeze/Thomas Nelson Publishing*

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (February 12, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595542027
• ISBN-13: 978-1595542021