Lights on the Mountain by Cheryl Anne Tuggle

About the book:

(from the publisher) Love, loss, and the memory of an otherworldly encounter haunt the days and nights of a Pennsylvania dairy farmer.

Barely old enough to vote when he loses his parents in an accident and inherits the family farm, Jess Hazel struggles to find meaning in the life he has always loved. Unable to shake the memory of a strange light he has seen hovering on the mountain peak above his valley home, he embarks on a pilgrimage, a halting inner odyssey riddled with fits and false starts.

Like the creek which cuts through the Allegheny foothills of its Western Pennsylvania setting, hope runs through every chapter of this novel. The beauty of the story lies in the unlikely people Jess encounters along the way, transmitters of a grace which at first hounds, then quietly eludes. Through events both tragic and joyous, Jess is led on a journey of self-discovery through ancestral sin, unexpected love, loss, holiness, compassion, forgiveness and redemption.

Genre: Fiction/Christian/Literary/General

If this were a movie, I’d rate it: PG

About the author:

Cheryl Anne Tuggle is a librarian, a freelance writer and a novelist, the author of Unexpected Joy: A Novel (Anaphora Press, 2011). She is a member of the Good Seed Writers Society and a featured writer on the blog Orthodox in the Ozarks. She has one son and one daughter, both grown, and lives in the wooded, rolling hills of the Missouri Ozarks with her husband of thirty-five years. Connect with the author at www.cherylannetuggle.com.

My take:

The set-up for Lights on the Mountain was, for me, one I couldn’t resist. So many rich themes to dig into! Not to mention an almost mystical setting. While I expected more of a literal, physical journey, what I discovered instead was a journey of the soul. If novels have personalities, this one is an introvert.

The exploration of both Russian Orthodox and Quaker values within the context of this mountain setting especially surprised and intrigued me. The author’s spare, poetic style of writing was just right for the bittersweet story it conveyed.

Lights on the Mountain is reminiscent of The Killing Tree by Rachel Keener, the Dust Bowl novels by Susie Finkbeiner and, for its literary style, Liar’s Winter by Cindy K. Sproles.

Thanks to Paraclete Press for providing me this book free of charge. All opinions are mine.

Buy it here.