Raw emotions!! Empathetic!! Revealing as no other book has been on depression. It touches your heart and pulls you into the life of a young woman struggling to tell her story as she lives with depression. A must read for everyone. Whether you know someone who struggles with depression, or has lost their battle to suicide, or you are just curious about it, this book is for you. I knew the review I would write after the first chapter and wrote it before I was halfway through. And it hasn't changed. If anything, I feel stronger about this book. ~ gmomreader
If you enjoy Christian fiction but are tired of fairy tales then this is the book for you. Alana Terry takes you into the heart, soul and mind of her characters and doesn't pull any punches in doing so. In this book, Before the Dawn, she tackles depression, spousal abuse, rape and postpartum psychosis. Just when the reader thinks the main character will give in to her problems that's when we meet one of the most endearing prayer warriors in Christian fiction. Can this woman's prayers make a difference?
Instead of saying I would recommend this book to a friend I would go further and say that if I could I would give copies to every woman I know. Why? I believe that women of faith would be uplifted and women who doubt or are unbelievers would be swayed to give God a chance.
How many Christian fiction books can you say that about? Read this book. It will affect you deeply and find it's place in your soul. ~Littleduffy
I absolutely loved this book and loved that the author, Alana Terry, had the courage, the discipline, the expertise and the ability to write the young protagonist's story in such an enlightening way. I am sure that 'getting into the head' of this young character and having her write her story as a letter to a past pastor was not an easy task. I suspect that any of us who have had experience in various church atmospheres have had conversations with pastors or leaders like the pastor of Sacred Tabernacle (great name, by the way, for a church with such a hypocritical doctrine), and hopefully we all have had experiences with characters like Grandma Lucy, who could pray a soul out of 'hell', so to speak. Before The Dawn is a book which I would recommend to absolutely anyone, male or female, young or old alike. There is so much in this book to think about. It's not a book where you will necessarily remember all the names of the characters, but it's a book which will give you lots to remember, think about and question. Even though this book is in The Orchard Grove series, it is a totally stand-alone book, which I couldn't put down.
Thank you, Alana Terry, for an amazingly well-written book and a letter to a pastor or leader that many of us would have loved to write at some time or another in our lives. :) Well-done! ~Sandra D.
What a great book! I can't say enough how much I love this series. I could hardly wait to start Before the Dawn, and sure enough, it didn't disappoint. I'm fascinated by how the author manages to tell the story both in chronological order and out of it at the same time, continually tantalizing the reader with tidbits about the past until the full picture is revealed at exactly the right point in the story. As with the others so far in this series, I really wish there was a sequel so I could find out what happens to the characters afterward. But at least I know there are more Orchard Grove tales coming! ~Annie Douglass Lima
