Eden Hill

I have long loved Liz Curtis Higgs and her many books. Now her husband, Bill Higgs, has written his first novel and it is as much a winner as Liz's books are.

Eden Hill is a small town in Kentucky that has its own set of interesting characters. They all make their appearances with aplomb and sometimes with righteous indignation. Virgil owns the only gas station in Eden Hill, but a visitor sees an opportunity to build a competing station just across the street from Virgil's. Virgil's wife, Mavine, feels that Virgil needs to set the competition down, until tragedy strikes and the truths that Virgil has learned all his life come to the fore. Those truths have to be introduced by Pastor Caudill and he has to bring the two competitors together to get them to forge a friendship. But the friendship stands strong when its needed.

Bill has created his characters with depth and humor, fixed his setting with a "Mayberry" style, and still instilled some deep spiritual truths in his novel. He set his novel in 1962, in the South, when Civil Rights weren't so civil, and brought to fore the challenge of some of the thinking during that era. I was raised in that environment, with somewhat closed minded parents, and the attitudes only taught me to fear where no fear was necessary.

This is a five star book, two thumbs up, and Mavine's newest casserole recipe.

My thanks to Tyndale House for allowing me to read and review this book.