Book Summary: Marnie Wittier has life just where she wants it. Quiet. Peaceful. No drama. A long way away from her past. In the privacy of her home, she fills a box with slips of paper scribbled with her regrets, sins and sorrows. But that's nobody else's business. Her bookstore/coffee shop patrons, her employees, her friends from church - they all think she's the very model of compassion and kindness.
Then Marnie's past creeps into her present when her estranged sister dies and makes Marnie guardian of her fifteen-year-old son - a boy Marnie never knew existed. And when Emmit arrives, she discovers he has Down syndrome - and that she's woefully unprepared to care for him. What's worse, she has to deal with Taylor Cole, her sister's attorney, a man Marnie once loved - and abandoned.
As Emmit and Taylor work their way into her heart, Marnie begins to heal. But when pieces of her dismal past surface again, she must at last face the pieces of paper in her box, all the regrets and sorrows. Can she do it? Or will she run again?
My Review: Marlo Schalesky's new book Shades of Morning is really good. My heart went out to Marnie while I read her story. Instead of trying to remember the good things that happened in her life, she would keep mementos like a napkin or ticket from events she would like to forget and place them in a special box. As the items in the box grew, her bitterness and disappointment over things in her past grew to where she thought she would never get over them. When Marnie got a letter from Taylor, her sister's attorney and an old love, saying her sister Rose died and made her guardian of her son Emmit, old memories come back that were once thought forgotten. Once she gets possession of Emmit, even though Marnie tries to find another place for him, her heart slowly softens towards him. With his help, she works through the papers in the box and learns to forgive and forget, along with restoring her relationship with Taylor.
I love the twists and turns of the story. Just when I thought I had everything figured out and I knew what would happen, the author surprised me. The ending took me by complete surprise, showing that God knows exactly what we need and how He provides help to get us where we need to go. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting a good read that is not at all predictable.
If you are interested in purchasing Shades of Morning, you can go to the Waterbrook Multnomah website or Amazon.com.
This book was provided by Waterbrook Multnomah for review.
Marlo Schalesky is the author of several acclaimed novels, including the Christy Award-winner Beyond the Night. A graduate of Stanford University, Marlo also has a master of theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. She's a regular columnist for Power of Living and lives with her husband, Bryan, and five children in California.
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