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Sunrise on the Battery

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Sunrise On the Battery is the book "Radical" by David Platt, put into fiction. The story centers around Mary Lynn and Jackson Scoville. The Scoville family have everying any family could ever want. An enormous house, wealth, beautiful kids, and being on the verge of reaching the pinacle of society in Charleston. Mrs. Scoville began joining a Bible study and became a Christian and started down the life of leading a "normal" Christian life. Their life started to change when Mary Lynn prayed for her husband to receive Christ. Through some truth seeking Jackson accepted Christ and decided to go full out for Him and restructure their life to center around Christ. Mary Lynn then started to regret ever praying for Jackson to become a Christian, because suddenly their life started falling apart, everything they had worked for suddenly went down the tube.

This story should be an eye opener for all of us. Living life as true Christians, living for Christ, shouldn't be centered around getting a good job, having a family, and savoring the many pleasures that life gives. Instead a life as a Christian is described as the exact opposite, we must lose our life in order to gain it and if we try to gain our life, we will only lose it (Matthew 16:25). We must live for Christ and if that means giving all we have to serve Him, then we should do it willingly. For this life doesn't give the best to come, it doesn't even give a shadow of the treasures we could receive in heaven for serving Him.

I received this book free from the publisher and am not required to write a positive review, but one of my own opinion.

Sunrise on the Battery by Beth Webb Hart looked promising. I thought the concept had the makings of a good story. I was left disappointed. The jumping from character to character made it hard to read. Just when I really got into the story line of a character and thought I was getting somewhere, the author would switch characters. I really didn't enjoy the backstory of South Carolina, seemed sort of irrelevant to the story for me. This book doesn't make me want to search out more from this author.

I received this book from B&B MEdia group in exchange for my honest review.

This fabulous contemporary fiction novel is gripping from the first chapter. It is hard to put the book down, as one wants to see how the story will unravel. It made me reflect on my own life and challenged me in certain areas, yet it is still a fun easy read. It is my first Beth Webb Hart book, and I look forward to reading more of her work.

I was struck deeply with conviction as I read Beth Webb Hart's latest novel, Sunrise on the Battery. It arrived on my doorstep the day before a series of conversations was to start with my husband about serving God and what that truly looked like in our lives. A week later, I started reading Sunrise on the Battery and I had to finish it that day.

Jackson and Mary Lynn Scoville live a perfect life in their perfect home in Charleston with their perfect kids. Or so the world believes. But things are not so perfect on the inside. In fact, the pain and discontentment festering seems to get larger and larger by the day, while remaining unknown and unnoticed by the family members.

Until Jackson one day is changed. His blinders are taken off and he changes. He begins to thirst for God in a way that makes others uncomfortable, especially his wife and children. His actions cause the family's social status to plummet and their world seems to be imploding.

And that's all I'll say about the plot. You'll have to read it to find out what happens. But here's what happened to me while reading it. I was so incredibly convicted by my own reactions. I felt for Mary Lynn as Jackson was "losing it" and losing the social status their family had craved and worked diligently for. And then I realized that I so often am cringing when my wonderful husband is loving and serving God in the all out, no holds barred way that he does. And I don't want to cringe. I want to support. And I want to love God deeper. And in our lives, I think that means acting in ways different than the American Christian culture expects. I think God is asking us to really love and serve him by loving and serving all people, and for me, this book reminded me that that is how I want to live my life.

This novel was much more than a novel to me. Thanks, Beth Webb Hart, for the way you write fiction that changes hearts! Thank you, Thomas Nelson, for the complimentary review copy of Sunrise on the Battery. I so enjoyed it.

Mary Lynn Scoville and her husband Jackson has achieved the climb up the social ladder in Charleston. Everything seems to be going just the way she wants - the perfect, successful husband, beautiful and talented children, wealth a large house and invitations to the elite parties. Then it all begins to change. As Mary Lynn begins to go to church she has an encounter with Christ and begins to live the typical "good Christian-girl" life. Knowing Christ, but not completely sold out, she asks for prayer that her husband Jackson, who long ago wrote God off, would come to a saving knowledge and a change of life. Little did she realize that this prayer would turn her perfectly perfect worldly life upside down - as is the case a lot of the time when there is a true experience with Jesus.

This is the novel "In His Steps" modernized with the principles of the book Radical combined. It is truly an inspiration to those who are asked to give up everything in the face of a radical change. What is it that you are holding on to that you don't think you could give up? Mary Lynn is about to discover that abundant life has nothing to due with what she has come to value, but will she discover it before it is too late?

Thank you B&B Communications for this review copy.

Mary Lynn and Jackson Scoville have worked hard to make their way into the company and approval of Charleston's elite, as well as give their three a girls a life filled with opportunities and privilege. Mary Lynn has recently returned to the faith of her childhood, and she now longs for her husband to know God. When she asks for prayer for her husband during a church service, she has no idea that her hard-work towards social status is about to get rearranged! When Jackson embraces his new found faith, he's ready to go all out! He starts befriending the homeless who wander the streets in Charleston, and begins to evangelize to the town, embarrassing Mary Lynn and their girls. Will Mary Lynn be able to handle her husband's radical faith, or is this just a glimpse of the rocky lifetime ahead of her?

I have to say that I loved Sunrise on the Battery for so many reasons. First, it introduces my beautiful Charleston and paints a perfect picture of the city's very southern and very elegant traditional lifestyle.

Second, the author presents the purpose of every Christian in a way that shows the radical faith we should have, while doing it in an almost humorous and ironic manner.

As a Charleston native, I actually cracked up when I read the premise of this book. Why? Because the very conflict let me know I'd be in for a ride!

The first portion of the book does seem to be a bit slow as it fills with more back-story, narration and description than any immediate scenes. None of these bog the story down or make it boring, though. In fact, I feel like these elements are important to help build up to the coming conflict in the story.

You see, Charleston is a unique culture in itself, but the elite and current high-society who reside in Charleston is another sub-culture entirely. Beth Webb Hart has done an excellent job in giving readers an intriguing first-hand look at the exclusive culture that belongs to Charleston's high-society. I've strolled down the Battery many-a-time and stared at the houses, knowing the lifestyles of the owners were very different than mine.

The Christmas scene at St. Phillip's Church, is in my opinion, filled with exquisite description and detail of how we decorate for the season. I absolutely loved this scene!

Again, I have to say I love the premise of this story. The faith element is so strong and wonderful--especially since these are the subjects I've been studying myself . . . and even wondering for months now what I can do to impact my beautiful Charleston for Christ.

For those who enjoy studying the Radical series by David Platt, you will love Sunrise on the Battery. For those who enjoy reading about Charleston, you too, will love this book. And for those who enjoy both, you will devour this charming tale!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher, Thomas Nelson, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

We meet Mary Lynn and Jackson Scoville as the book opens - a hardworking Southern couple from the wrong side of the tracks that have finally "made it". As a child, Mary Lynn, was an illegitimate child raised in poverty, while Jackson was the only son of a widower farmer who discouraged his son's academic acumen for his help on the farm. Despite their childhoods, they forge ahead and are able to amass a fortune selling real estate that was inherited to them. Their goal is to ensure that their 3 daughters have the social standing they never had and the Ivy League education Jackson always dreamed of. They are sure that this life will give them all that they will ever need to succeed.

In the background, we see how God is slowly showing Himself to Mary Lynn as she tries to navigate the pretentious social elite that is their life. While she is able to separate God and her "life", she prays that he would do a work in Jackson's hard heart. In response, God answers in ways that are beyond what she could ever imagine.

Despite being a work of fiction, Sunrise on the Battery was a great read and thought provoking book about living out the faith that we profess to believe. I would recommend the book!

Beth Webb Hart's latest book is rich and insightful. She is at her best in her depiction of life in Charleston -- South of Broad and the lovely details that she includes about life in the low country. Her work is authentic in its place and characters. In particular, Beth Webb captures exactly the social pressures of living in a small city like Charleston or perhaps many other small cities and towns in the South. The central theme of the book as to whether the "good life" should be an end in itself are worthy for all of us to consider. And Beth Webb gives us a poignant example of a family that faces this issue head on with potentially disastrous consequences.

SUNRISE ON THE BATTERY

By Beth Webb Hart

Mary Lynn Scoville seems to have it all, and is on the verge of being invited into the last club that polite Charleston society has to offer. But when Mary Lynn experiences a miracle on Christmas Eve, she prays that her husband and three daughters will experience God's touch as well. But when her prayer is answered in a way she never expected can Mary Lynn every truly be happy and what will her happiness cost? And will Charleston, South Carolina ever be the same?

Sunrise on the Battery looks at life and what is important. Are accolades of human achievement all important in living a fulfilling life? Is it possible to heal old wounds by climbing the social ladder? The Scoville family is about to find out what is truly important. The pinnacles of society, the homeless on the street who will have the biggest impact?

Sunrise on the Battery also touches on teen substance abuse - drinking and pharming.

Sunrise on the Battery looks at friendship and what true friendship really is. Is it tied to your checkbook? Your address? Who your parents are? Or is it a giving of oneself just because with no strings attached?

Sunrise on the Battery is an enjoyable read that has a lesson to teach.

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.

I am an avid Christian fiction reader and I really felt like Sunrise on the Battery, by Beth Webb Hart, was a new, fresh novel. Hart didn't follow the sometimes formulaic "struggle in life, become a Christian, conflicts resolve" pattern.

As a Christian who has been touched by David Platt's book, Radical, I could see pieces of that coming through this book and, indeed, when I got to the end of the book I saw Hart was inspired by Radical as well. It was fascinating to see an author weave that concept through her novel. I loved reading how Mary Lynn Scoville was a "surface" Christian who prayed for her husband to be changed by God and then when he was radically transformed, it was hard for her to shift her mindset.

I saw the book as brutally honest and sometimes hard to swallow. What Jackson Scoville does after he crosses the line of faith is indeed radical and can cause the reader to search their own lives for ways to truly transform the world as a follower of God. It was a great message for Hart to get out in the public eye.

I hope to see many more life-changing works of fiction by Hart and other novelists who have been transformed by Platt's Radical and, more importantly, by God.

*This book was given to me by the publisher, Thomas Nelson.