Christian Fiction... the Realistic Kind

As I mentioned before, I have a weakness for Christian fiction. So when I had the chance to review a book for Thomas Nelson publishers, I jumped at the opportunity!! Beth Webb Hart's newest book, Sunrise on the Battery looked a really intriguing read. Like her previous book, it takes place in Charleston, South Carolina in modern times.

The book synopsis seems to promise a novel about a couple who have given everything for a place in high society. The wife, Mary, comes to know God and prays for her husband to come to know him as well. When he does get saved, he becomes an overenthusiastic Christian, threatening their status in society.

I expected the book to be about Mary's struggles with her husband's spiritual awakening and subsequent activity. For those of us who have been Christians for a while, this dilemma is familiar. If not with our family members, we've seen this in friends and acquaintances. What do you do when someone sees overzealous?

In this sense, Hart's book is disappointing. Jackson doesn't convert until page 183 out of 277 pages. The next 95 pages do detail his overzealous activities, and Mary does have a difficult time coming to terms with the vast change in her husband. However, Hart fails to give a Christian perspective on how to confront the situation. One of the main characters fails into sinful thoughts and others are just confused. Everything seems to be miraculously resolved in the last chapter.

Mary and her husband have three children with very different personalities. In the first two-thirds of the book, they add to the nuance of this story. However, after Jackson's conversion, they seem to fall by the wayside.

All in all, I enjoyed this book more than Hart's previous book Love, Charleston. However, it seems more disappointing than inspiring. It seems so realistic that there is no clear take home message from the book. I leave the book just as confused about this issue as before I began.