Book Review: Sunrise on the Battery by Beth Webb Hart

Book Description

Now that she’s arrived at the ultimate address, can Mary Lynn’s view of the harbor – and success – satisfy the deeper longings of her heart?
After decades of carefully working their way up the social ladder, Mary Lynn and Jackson Scoville are living their dream: a life of luxury and ease in the heart of Charleston, South Carolina. Jackson made a small fortune selling low country real estate, so now the couple is determined to provide for their three daughters the life they both longed for as kids.
But lately the long-forgotten God of Mary Lynn’s childhood has been trying to get her attention in ways so unusual that she can no longer deny His presence. When she prays for Jackson to open his heart to God, something radical happens. Jackson has a dramatic conversion that leads to street witnessing, giving away money, and inviting less-than-reputable people into their home.
Starring out into the harbor, Mary Lynn ponders whether or not she is willing to give up her life of luxury to join Jackson in his new-found faith. What would it look like to go “all out” for God…to allow Him to lead their family regardless of the cost? Just when Mary Lynn felt she had all the desires of her heart – she finds herself being called into a much bigger story of true faith and love.

Be careful what you ask God for because you just might get it.  That's the big message that I got out of this book.  How often do we pray and ask God for something, and then question him when he delivers?  Mary Lynn prays that her husband Jackson will open his heart to God.  Jackson doesn't do anything half way, and when God answers her prayer in a mighty way, Mary Lynn ends up unhappier then when she was before he was saved.  She wanted God to answer her prayer in her way not His.  Thankfully she founds out that God is in control and that His plan was much better than hers and that things like social status and false friends will end up not mattering in eternity.

I really liked that this book was told by three different perspectives.  You have an opportunity to get the story from both Mary Lynn and Jackson's side, you also get to see inside their oldest teenage daughter, Catherine.  It was very insightful to see things from Catherine's side of the story.  There were two things that I wish had been added to the story.  Even though we know that she has resolved the problem on her own, I had hoped that Catherine would come clean about her drug problem to her parents.  Also, after Mary Lynn's accident and the girls baptism, we get to read Mary Lynn and Jackson's perspectives but we don't get Catherine's.  I wish it would have ended with a chapter from her side too.

I received a complimentary e book copy of Sunrise on the Battery from Thomas Nelson for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation.