Another Visit to Cedar Key -- Waiting for Sunrise

 A rising voice in Southern fiction, award-winning author Eva Marie Everson writes with a large helping of Florida charm. Waiting for Sunrise is a touching story of family, young love and the need for forgiveness. Everson expertly draws out the bittersweet moments of life, weaving them into a tale that envelops the soul. 

Life sometimes gets the best of us. For some it's the daily pressures, for others it's the shadows of the past. For Patsy Milstrap, it's both. When she travels to beautiful Cedar Key on Florida's Gulf Coast in search of healing, she never dreams her past will be waiting for her there. 


A few months ago, I first visited Cedar Key, Florida, in Eva Marie Everson's Chasing Sunsets.  (You can read about it here.)  Ever since, I've been anxiously awaiting a return visit.  I finally had the chance, and it was worth the wait.

Waiting for Sunrise is the story of Patsy Milstrap.  If you've read the first book, you'll remember Patsy as the loving older neighbor of Kimberly Tucker Granger who helped Kimberly through a particularly difficult time.  This new book fills us in the story Patsy told Kimberly about the life she and her beloved Gilbert shared and how she ended up in Cedar Key many years earlier.  Waiting for Sunrise would be easily enjoyed without the benefit of reading Chasing Sunsets . . . but why not enjoy them both!

Patsy has suffered a lot of loss and hurt in her young life.  When she falls in love with Gilbert Milstrap and starts a new life with him, she hopes to put all the pain of her past behind her.  Instead, those old hurts and fears stay with her and put her at risk of losing everything.  Eventually, at Gilbert's suggestion, he and Patsy travel to the island of Cedar Key for a vacation.  In that idyllic setting, Patsy comes face-to-face with her past and learns important lessons of family, love, and forgiveness.

Eva Marie Everson is a southern girl who knows how to tell a beautiful story.  If you're also from the south, you may enjoy things like her comment about Patsy's "picking and putting up vegetables" in the first chapter of the story.  And if you're not from the south, well, bless your heart . . . you can still enjoy the lovely story!

(This book was provided free from Revell for my honest review.)

Available June 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Eva Marie Everson is a successful speaker and the award-winning author of Things Left Unspoken, This Fine Life, and Chasing Sunsets. She is coauthor of the Potluck Club books and the Potluck Catering Club series. She lives in Florida. 


From June 10-16 Eva is running a contest for a Kindle Fire.  Check out details here.