Sunrise On The Battery by Beth Webb Hart

Synopsis :

She wanted her husband to attend the town's society-driven church.  God answered her prayer in a radical way.

After achieving what few believed possible, Mary Lynn Scoville felt empty, an emptiness that no shopping trips, European vacation or social calender can fill. Married to a handsome real estate developer and mother to three accomplished daughters, she is one Debutante Society invitation away from fruly having it all.

When a surprise encounter leads her to newfound faith, Mary Lynn longs to share it with her husband but Jackson wrote God off long ago.  Mary Lynn prays for him on Christmas Eve and her husband undergoes a life-altering Damascus Road experience.  As Jackson begins to take the implications of the Gospel literally, Mary Lynn feels increasingly isolated from her husband and betrayed by God.  She wonders if there really is a more abundant life that Jackson has discovered, richer than any she's every dreamt of.

Sunrise On The Battery was pretty difficult to read as I read it quite fast to get this review up.   This is the type of book that requires slow reading, reflecting on message as you move along.  However, eventhough it was read in haste, I still enjoyed it. 

The story is told from the perspective of 3 members of the family, Mary Lynn, husband Jackson and eldest daughter Catherine.  Each of them have their own issues in life that they need to make right.  It all started with a simple prayer by Mary Lynn while in church on Christmas Eve, I want my husband to know God' and God honours her request.  While on a long haul fight to London, Jackson, an avid reader, left the books that he brought along to read in another plane.  Mary Lynn passed him her Bible and he read them during the 5 hours journey and he started to have questions and Jackson is the go-getter type that with his questions, he wants answers and he made appointments with a church pastor upon their return from London to seek answers to his questions.  

From there readers get a glimpse how why Jackson is the way he is today.  Why he leads his life like a task master and pushes his daughters to be the high achievers he never was and he wanted the dreams and achievement for his daughters that he was deprived of when young but with each such action, sometimes the consequences are just too much for our human self to take and we need divine intervention.

While it's Mary Lynn's desire for change, she is not ready for the radical change in her life.  Part of her still craves the things of the world, the social statues and the acceptance that eluded her in her growing up years. It wasn't long before Jackson's overzealousness caused the family to be socially persecuted.  Mary Lynn began to question herself and to question God and to nearly give in to temptation. But God is faithful and there would be no turning back for the Scoville family.

Sunrise On The Battery is published by Thomas Nelson.  I review this for B&B Media Group.  Thank you, Audra (and not Andrea nor Audrey) for sending this copy.