Once in a Blue Moon

Eileen Goudge has a new book out (on the shelves October 6th), and thanks to One2One Network I read a preview copy, which I just finished on release day!

Once in a Blue Moon appealed to me the moment I read the description because the characters are, to say the least, non-traditional.

Lindsay and her little sister, Kerrie Anne, live with their Mom, but it's 12 year-old Lindsay who is really in charge. She's had to look after her little sister since day one. Only Miss Honi Love, the ex-exotic dancer who lives downstairs, seems to care about the two girls, who even Lindsay can see are different as night and day.

She, Lindsay, is the strong one, while Kerrie Anne is the cute, helpless baby.

So when the two girls are taken away from their home and placed into separate foster homes, it's no wonder that their lives take divergent paths.

Still, twenty years later, no one would ever recognize the two as sisters. Lindsay has never stopped trying to find her little sister--but when Kerrie Anne once more enters her life, is she really prepared for the new woman her little sister has become?

I don't want to give too much of the story away, but I do like how Once in a Blue Moon deals with our perceptions about what people are like and whether or not each of us is capable of change.

For example, Lindsay sees herself as strong and capable, and Kerrie Anne feels like she has become the ultimate screw-up; yet Kerrie Anne has inner reserves of strength she's never realized, and even Lindsay feels helpless when she is faced with the prospect of losing her home.

There are, to me, very few surprises in this book in the end, but it's a pleasant read, and the non-traditional characters *are* interesting, especially Miss Honi Love and Ollie, who runs the coffee shop in Lindsay's bookstore. Ollie at first seems boyish and sweet, but he's a more complex character than that initial reading suggests.

Once in a Blue Moon, so named because much of the book takes place in fictional Blue Moon Bay, Lindsay's sleepy home town on the coast of CA, is a good book to snuggle up to in the cold winter nights ahead. Again, it's not full of twists and turns, but that makes the plot more believable and the characters all the more relatable in the end.

And yes, there's plenty of romance!

I received an advance review copy of Once in a Blue Moon from One2One Network to facilitate my review of the book at its release.