A friend recommended Sarah Sundin to me. Right away, I purchased the first book in the series, The Sea Before Us: Sunrise at Normandy, Book 1. I completed it in a few days, purchased the second, The Sky Above Us: Sunrise at Normandy, Book 2, and purchased the third. Rarely do I embrace a second or third book above the first in a series. But in this case, The Land Beneath Us: Sunrise at Normandy, Book 3 captured first place in my heart.
Sundin’s The Land Beneath Us: Sunrise at Normandy, Book 3 surprised me in that she sprinkled suspense throughout the narrative, and I found myself engaged in the lives of Clay Paxton and Leah Jones.
Through Clay’s eyes, I experienced the parable of the prodigal son better than I learned it in a Sunday school class or at church. I inserted myself into the storyline and felt all the emotions of the prodigal son, as well as the eldest son who remained steadfast and responsible back home to help in the family business.
The thread of abandonment haunts Leah in The Land Beneath Us. I found her emotional struggles engaging and inspirational because of her decision to live a life more like Pollyanna than a Debbie Downer.
If you enjoyed Sarah Sundin’s first two books in the Sunrise at Normandy series, you might love The Land Beneath Us: Sunrise at Normandy, Book 3. Other similar recommendations include Karen Barnett’s When Stone Wings Fly: A Smoky Mountains Novel; David Baldacci’s Strangers in Time; Lynn Austin’s Chasing Shadows and her equally moving novel, If I Were You; John Boyne’s All the Broken Places: A Novel; and Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place.
