By Way of the Moonlight by Elizabeth Musser

About the Book:

Two courageous young women, tied together by blood and shared passion, will risk everything to save what they love most.

For as long as she can remember, Allie Massey, a gifted physical therapist, has dreamed of making her grandparents' ten-acre estate into a trauma recovery center using equine therapy--a dream her grandmother, Nana Dale, embraced wholeheartedly. But when her grandmother's will is read, Allie is shocked to learn the property has been sold to a developer.

Decades earlier, headstrong Dale Butler's driving passion is to bring home the prized filly her family lost to the Great Depression, but with World War II looming, she's called upon in ways she never could have imagined. And while her world expands to include new friends and new love, tragedy strikes close to home one fateful night during the Battle of the Atlantic, changing her life forever.

As Nana Dale's past comes to light in Allie's search for answers, Dale's courage and persistence may be just what Allie needs to carry on her grandmother's legacy and keep her own dreams alive.

You can read an excerpt here.

My Review:

This is a touching dual time novel for lovers of horses. While I found the novel emotionally rewarding, it is not a page turner. The pace of the plot is slow and methodical. Musser takes her time revealing the current situation and the back story leading up to it. Some of the depth of the novel is because of the character back story. It took much to reveal it all and I felt the book is too long for the plot.

The novel is informative regarding the riding of horses in competition and then along the South Carolina shore during WW II. Musser did much research to authentically create the historical action. There is also some information on equine therapy although that does take a back seat to the historical information.

While I did feel the novel was too long and moved at a slower pace than I would have liked, it is a touching story with a satisfying twist near the end.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

About the Author:

Elizabeth Musser, (www.elizabethmusser.com) writes "entertainment with a soul" from her writing chalet--tool shed--outside Lyon, France. Elizabeth's award-winning, bestselling novel The Swan House was named one of Amazon's Top Christian Books of the Year and one of Georgia's Top Ten Novels of the Past 100 Years, and was awarded the Gold Illumination Book Award 2021 for Enduring Light Fiction. All of Elizabeth's novels have been translated into multiple languages and have been international bestsellers. Two Destinies, the final novel in The Secrets of the Cross trilogy, was a finalist for the 2013 Christy Award. The Long Highway Home was a finalist for the 2018 Carol Award. Elizabeth's most recent novel, The Promised Land, won second place in Literary Fiction at the 2021 Georgia Author of the Year Awards and won the 2021 Carol Award for Contemporary Fiction.

For over thirty-five years, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have been involved in missions work in Europe with One Collective, formerly International Teams. The Mussers have two sons, two daughters-in-law, and five grandchildren.

Bethany House Publisher, 400 pages.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)