Book Description:
Susanna is a lady of principles who values family above all. Johann seems to represent all she despises . . . but appearances can be deceiving.
In 1875, Susanna Hanby is headed off to college in Westerville, Ohio, when she discovers her sister Rachel and Rachel’s children have disappeared. Susanna suspects that Rachel’s alcoholic husband knows more than he’s saying and she vows to uncover the truth.
Johann Giere is heir to a successful German-American brewery in Columbus, but longs for a career in journalism in New York City. When Johann signs on as the supplier for a new saloon in Westerville, his and Susanna’s paths cross and sparks fly. A fiery temperance crusader, Susanna despises Johann’s profession, but she cannot deny the attraction.
When Susanna learns that Rachel’s children have been indentured to orphanages in the city, she despairs that her family will be fractured forever. But Johann makes Susanna an offer she can’t refuse—pitting her passion and her principles against one another.
If she can find a way for her head and her heart to be in harmony, a future lovelier than daylight awaits her.
Lovelier than Daylight is a story of love and faith based on the Westerville Whiskey War of 1875, a dramatic real historical event featured in the 2011 documentary Prohibition by Ken Burns.
My Review:
When Susanna Hanby comes to her sister’s house and finds no one there. The story her sister’s husband tells her, she jut cannot wrap her head around. Why would her sister abandon her family…her children in an orphanage, her home and why did her rotten husband say that she was unfaithful. I felt when I read this part of the book, I just could feel Susanna’s helplessness. She wanted to find her sister, she blamed her sister’s drunken husband, she blames the bar owner, the brewer’s and throughout the book this emotion is betrayed on every page.
When she meets Johann, he throws a kink in her ideals of what a brewer was. Here is someone that sets out to show her that they are not promoting drunkenness, and to attempt to make her fall in love with him. He is a noble man, and shows love and respect for his father, even when it means giving up his dreams.
This story is not so much a romantic one, as it is a historical one. It is a story of what love and respect is and what it isn’t. It will tell you how sometimes people let you down, even the best, when in impossible situations and what forgiveness can be. You will read history that you did not know happened, or at least I did not read about it before and you will be sucked into this book, which like her others, is excellently written and crafted.
I highly recommend it!