With a universal message on war, Sing before Breakfast is a historical fiction of stellar note, impressive allegory, and surprising tenderness. Powerfully wrought with painstaking accuracy, author and history buff George Stein realistically captures events of the American Civil War and its impact on civilians and their land. Through the eyes of a young boy, a nation is being forged.
"These liturgies, written in the language of longing and lament, in the voices Brian Walsh's community, call us to engage with the words of Habakkuk, and with the prophets and poets of our time. These words, forged in shared experience, in joy and pain, call us to join in the radical resistance of sitting and eating in midst of a bewildering age." --Mark Wallace, Christian Reformed Church Campus Ministry Leader "Habakkuk Before Breakfast is like no other book on the prophet. That's because it is, itself, prophecy - and poetry, and preaching, and prayer, and liturgy, and lament, and a dozen other things melded together into a powerful, and powerfully disturbing, whole. A book to shake us up and make us realize that God's loving justice is the only firm on which anyone--or any society--can stand." --N.T. Wright, University of St. Andrews
“Suspenseful . . . startling plot twists and incisive commentary on the social unrest of a coal-mining town during the Great Depression . . . a breathtaking ending.” —Publishers Weekly In 1930, twenty-five-year-old Violet travels with her sixteen-year-old sister, Lily, from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to the Good Shepherd Infant Asylum in Philadelphia, so Lily can deliver her illegitimate child in secret. In doing so, Violet jeopardizes her engagement to her sweetheart, Stanley Adamski. Meanwhile, Mother Mary Joseph, who runs the Good Shepherd, has no idea the asylum’s physician is involved in eugenics and experimenting on girls with various sterilization techniques. Five years later, Lily and Violet are back in Scranton, one married, one about to be, each finding her own way in a place where a woman’s worth is tied to her virtue. Against the backdrop of the sweeping eugenics movement and rogue coal mine strikes, the Morgan sisters must choose between duty and desire. Either way, they risk losing their marriages and each other. The follow-up to Barbara J. Taylor’s debut, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night—named one of the Best Summer Books of 2014 by Publishers Weekly—All Waiting is Long continues her Dickensian exploration of the Morgan family. “Taylor’s characters—a cast of nuns and prostitutes, mobsters and miners, social activists and church busybodies—reflect the varying pressures and expectations of small-town life with rich, insightful prose and dialogue that rings true to each character’s voice. Will the web of lies the two sisters weave around themselves survive? You’ll have to read it yourself to find out. Recommended.” —Historical Novel Review “Powerful . . . Every page is saturated with the 1930s milieu as the sisters navigate the adversities of their reality . . . The overall result is a thought-provoking book club discussion cornucopia.” —Booklist (starred review)
