My Review of Beneath the Night Tree by Nicole Baart

Beneath the Night Tree is the story of Julia DeSmit, a single mother who lives with her 5 year old son, 10 year old brother and her grandmother. Their family is far from perfect, but they love each other and try to make the best of the life they have together. As Julia plans her wedding to her fiance, Michael, she is suddenly contacted by Parker, the father of her son who she has not heard from since she became pregnant. As Julia faces all the emotions that come with reconnecting to Parker, at the same time she recognizes that her son has a right to know his father. The characters in the story face a variety of situations that we deal with in real life every day. I appeciated the fact that the people in the story struggled with different emotions and decisions and didn't automatically say, feel or do the right thing just because this was a Christian novel. I felt that I could relate to the characters and how they felt.
I found this novel to be refreshing in that the characters don't all end up living happily ever after and all of the problems that the chacters face don't simply disappear when two people fall in love. There is not a simple or obvious answer in which everyone in the story walks away with all their dreams coming true. The story was true to life in the sense that we live with our choices and life doesn't always unfold the way that we plan. Sometimes we make decisions that are not easy and then we rely on God to help us walk through the consequences of those choices. Nicole Baart has a beautiful writing style that holds your interest and attenton from the first page. She eloquently illustrates that life is often complicated, but that we can choose to allow God to be involved in our lives and He can turn our "messes" into something wonderful. Simply put, we can trust God with our good and our bad.
I received a copy of this book for review from Tyndale Publishers and was not obligated to give a positive opinion. This book is the third book in a series and I look forward to reading the first two as well.