Book Review: Hunter's Moon by Dan Hoesel

Hunter's Moon by Dan Hoesel is not your normal "Christian Fiction." First, aside from Frank Peretti, most of the Christian fiction I see around is romance-novel-ish. I love mysteries, and action stories, though, so I thought this book would be right up my alley. And indeed, it did have a good mystery, a lot of tension, and a fairly exciting ending. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

C.J. is a novelist who, despite his efforts, cannot keep his hometown of Adelia out of his books. There is only one problem... some people may not want their histories shared with the world. When C.J. returns to Adelia to attend his grandfather's funeral, he finds himself confronted with a family secret he ran away from, and a number of family members who are and aren't happy to see him. C.J.'s brother, Graham, is running for senate, and meanwhile C.J.'s messy divorce and other family happenings are sort of mucking up the plan. All the while, C.J. is rediscovering who he is and who God is calling him to be.

Here is the bottom line: this book wasn't half bad. I thought there were too many characters right off the bat, and too many with similar names which made it hard for me to keep them straight (George and Graham for instance). That and the fact that the mysterious family secret was revealed pretty early in the story were my only "cons". I thought the author did a really good job of presenting C.J.'s young faith in Jesus without being super preachy but still being authentic to the character and to Christianity. The story did meander a little bit, but I was engaged in C.J.'s life, so it was actually OK. And the end kept me up past midnight because I didn't want to go to bed without finishing it, which if nothing else at least shows that the book had caught me pretty well by then.

Hunter's Moon is a pretty solid read, not great, not the best book I've read in a while, but good. If you like mysteries and suspense, you'll probably like it. 4 scarecrows out of 5.