I was provided a complimentary copy of this book by Waterbrook Press. I was not compensated for this review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. I was not required to write a positive review.
As the Tide Comes In by Cindy Woodsmall, Erin Woodsmall Published by Waterbrook Press on August 21, 2018
Genres: Clean & Wholesome, Contemporary, Contemporary Women, Family, Family & Relationships, Friendship, Inspirational, Romance
Pages: 352
Source: Waterbrook Press
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A New York Times best-selling novelist shares a "Steel Magnolias meets Sweet Home Alabama" story of four lifelong friends in the Deep South who cross paths with a young homeless woman.
Raised in foster care in Asheville, North Carolina, Tara Abbott has been rearing her two younger half-brothers since she turned eighteen. When the young men, Sean and Nicholas, are lost to a devastating tornado and Tara suffers a head injury, the grief-struck woman flees to St. Simons Island, looking for a family connection. She knows the place has some thread to Nana Phi and the painting she left to Tara. Things go awry from the moment Tara arrives in St. Simons, and the effects of her head injury blur the lines between imagination and reality. Nothing quite adds up, and the trouble is compounded when her wallet and phone are lost. Soon an addled Tara is taking refuge wherever she can, stealing food as needed.
St. Simons residents Julep Burnside, Luella Ward, Sue Beth Manning, and Dell Calhoun have been friends since they attended Bible camp together forty years earlier. Hailing from Glynn County, Georgia, they call themselves The Glynn Girls. They were longtime friends with Sapphira Flagg, before she passed, and they don't know that the homeless troubled soul that they are helping--the one Julep's son Gavin discovered--is Phi's long-lost granddaughter. Can the Glynn Girls help Tara find her way back to herself?
Truth. I feel like the Ya-Yas took a field trip to Chinquapin Parish to hang out at Truvy’s for the day and then they all hoped on over to St. Simon Island to chill with the Glynn Girls for the rest of the weekend. It’s a legit thing, though part of me struggles to see any of those gals leaving Louisiana for this trip to Georgia. For all the gravy, it’s about to get southern up in here. Truth. Filled with southern colloquialisms and a lot of Mama wisdom this book also brings a lot of depth and hurting and overcoming and faith with it. Trust me though, you don’t have to be southern to get it, you just have to have an open heart and a willingness to faith life’s hard moments with Tara.
I can’t imagine being in Tara’s shoes, losing her brothers whom she chose to raise when she turned 18. Chose being the operative word here as she almost walked away. Almost. But she didn’t. And it seems like they had an amazing life together. Tara without a history of her own, without a family, with nothing but two friends to call her own. And then two half-brothers who had a family who loved them, until they didn’t. Life is messy people. There’s a lot of spirituality in this book. A calling to take the vacation that had been planned by her brothers despite surgery and brain injury and her world being upside down. There was a rock that no one can explain how it was returned to her in the hospital. The calling to stay on St. Simeon Island despite everyone urging her to go back home. Cindy and Erin did an amazing job of weaving together a story of faith, grieving, and love. They did so with people I want to know and spend time with. People with multi-dimensional lives that weren’t just centered around the trauma that Tara had gone through. The Glynn Girls business and finances and their own lives and happenings. Gavin and the boys at the fire station. Hadley and Elliot with their families and the family they had with Tara. Hobbies and careers and lives that are meant to be lived. Not just a focus on the theme of the story. I mean, doesn’t everyone need four southern mamas?
I loved this book. There are not enough words. I may have stayed up through the midnight hour to finish this book in one setting. I may have not been able to put it down. I am grateful that jammication allowed me the freedom to do that. However, love is not the word that comes to mind when writing this review. Hard. Frustrating. Elusive. Those words. It’s frustratingly hard to find the elusive words to honestly convey my love of this book. It’s also different as this is my first read by Cindy Woodsmall that steps away from her fictional root of the Amish. Totally not disappointed and can’t wait to read more from both of the amazing Woodsmall women, Amish or not.
About Cindy Woodsmall
Cindy Woodsmall is a New York Times and CBA best-selling author who has written nineteen (and counting!) works of fiction and one of nonfiction. She and her dearest Old Order Amish friend, Miriam Flaud, coauthored the nonfiction, Plain Wisdom: An Invitation into an Amish Home and the Hearts of Two Women. Cindy’s been featured on ABC Nightline and the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and has worked with National Geographic on a documentary concerning Amish life. In June of 2013, the Wall Street Journal listed Cindy as one of the top three Amish fiction writers.
About Erin Woodsmall
Erin Woodsmall is a writer, musician, wife, and mom of three. She has edited, brainstormed, and researched books with Cindy Woodsmall for almost a decade.
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