Do you love Jodi Picoult and LuAnn Rice? Have you heard of Eileen Goudge? With more than four million copies of her books in print worldwide, you’re going to want to check her out now if you’re not already hip to her talent.

Eileen Goudge is the New York City-based author of The Diary, Domestic Affairs, Woman in Red, One Last Dance, Garden of Lies and Thorns of Truth.

What’s Once In A Blue Moon about?

Sisters Lindsay and Kerrie Ann have known hardship from an early age. Without guidance from their neglectful mother, their only aid came from an unlikely source, a retired exotic dancer by the name of Miss Honi Love. When the girls’ mother was sent to prison, Miss Honi tried unsuccessfully to save them from being separated and sent into foster care.

Thirty years later, Lindsay is still trying to reconnect with her sister. The owner of a bookstore in the sleepy California seaside town of Blue Moon Bay, she was lucky enough to have been adopted by a loving couple. Unbeknownst to her, Kerrie Ann has suffered a very different life. Bounced from one foster home to the next, she ran away as a teenager before becoming a drug-addicted single mother. Now, newly sober, Kerrie Ann is fighting to regain custody of the little girl who was taken from her.

Neither sister’s expectations are met when they’re finally reunited. But as the two sisters engage in the fiercest battles of their lives, they are at last drawn together despite their differences, restoring belief in the unshakable bond of family.

My Thoughts…

I was quite moved by this story, I laughed, cried, and often thought there was no hope for certain people in the story as things got pretty rough. I myself have never lived life styles like the characters found throughout these pages but I know people that are living and fighting just to hang on to whatever hope that they can like you’ll find one of the leading ladies doing in this book.

Many challenging issues like loss, infidelity, adoption, foster care, make for quite the novel.  I appreciated the author spotlighting how important family is to each and everyone of us and how much compassion and understanding can truly make a difference in the lives of others. I also believe Eileen captured and displayed that in order to grow and move on in life that we have to open our hearts no matter how hard it may seem sometimes.