Book review: Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon

Winning the court case was the easy part.

A mother agonizing over the loss of her daughter discovers that babies were switched at the hospital and that her birth daughter has grown up with strangers while she nurtured – and buried – a daughter not hers biologically.

Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon by Debbie Fuller Thomas grapples honestly with some difficult issues and lands a story that grips the reader.

We follow the story line alternately through the viewpoint of the two main characters. Marty is the mother, a divorced woman trying to do the right thing for her family. When the story breaks that her daughter was switched at birth – and is now orphaned – Marty decides to offer Andie a life with her biological family.

We also see the situation through Andie’s eyes as she, at 13, is determined to remain loyal to her parents, who were loving followers of Jesus tragically killed in an airplane crash.

Although there aren’t villains in this story – unless we lay that title on rebellious older sister Deja – the conflicts lie with opposing loyalties. Marty wants to love Andie, her own flesh-and-blood although still a stranger to her. Andie wants to return to her childhood family setting although her parents weren’t her biological family.

We sympathize with both and yet I found myself longing for them to find a way to love each other. They were both good-intentioned people conflicted by grief to others they had loved.

Both Marty and Andie wrestle with their faith. Their lives, which began together and then took off on tangents, bump together once again, rich in realistic emotion and honest effort to respond in ways that honor God.

Tuesday Night is well written, a book with characters that will grip your heart. This has been one of the best reads of the year for me and I encourage you to put it on your reading list.