Under a Summer Sky

 This was a wonderful novel by Nan Rossiter.  It has been sitting on my Kindle Unlimited feed for quite a while now.  I finally decided to read it for my Around the Year challenge to read books with binary opposites in the titles.  I must admit I was expecting a beach read and was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the characters and the spiritual content included in the novel.   There were definitely some hard hitting events in the book, but it felt like a story that most people could relate to in some aspect or another.  At its heart it's a book about family and the everyday aspects of life but also the major challenges and events we encounter as part of life as well.  It reflected on how different events effect different people. 
I also felt it did a wonderful job of addressing faith and how people's belief and trust in God can be shaken when bad things happen.   There were several sermons given by Noah Coleman, the father, who is a pastor.   He discussed how we can reconcile the seemingly bad things in life with having faith and still believing there is a God.  All in all the religious component was an aspect of the story, but was not so much so that it was the constant aspect of the book.  Basically it was intertwined nicely. 
As an added bonus, Grandpa Coleman had a tradition of reciting poetry.  Therefore, there are several poems contained within the text and this allowed me to check off a prompt in my  52 books in 52 weeks  challenge.
This book turns out to be part of a series written by Rossiter so I plan to go back and read the first book , The Gin and Chowder Club, which is about Noah's grandparents and his father, Asa. 

Under a Summer Sky by Nan Rossiter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars 

Very touching.story

This novel is a heartwarming story about fami!y and faith. At its heart is the message to be a part of daily living. Life has its ups and downs but God is there to love and support is through it all. The story follows the Coleman family through the course of a summer preparing for a family wedding. Rossiter weaves a wonderful story about this family of 7 and their love for each other and their extended family. It is an emotional roller coaster at times.but all in all a wonderful read 

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Challenge Prompts

The Challenge Prompts I will use this for are: 

1. Around the Year in 52 Books- #38 A pair of binary opposites
2. 52 Books in 52 weeks  #33 a book containing poetry
3. Book List Queen #47 you own but haven't read
4. While I was Reading #7 on your shelf for more than a year