"A tearjerker!"

Jessie Ryder has finally come back home. She knows she should have contacted her sister Luz but she was afraid Luz would discourage her from coming after sixteen years. Jessie is back for one reason and one reason only. She wants to see the daughter she gave to her sister at her birth. She has a valid reason for this but one she doesn't want to share with anyone in her family. After Jessie signed her daughter over to Luz and Ian, she winged off for sixteen years to do what Luz always wanted to do. Jessie's taken pictures for magazines and has traveled the world.

Poor Luz never even had a chance to finish her college degree but after taking Jessie's daughter and having three sons of her own with her husband, Ian, she's happy- isn't she? It's just that her life doesn't seem exciting and fulfilling like Jessie's. Now teenager, Lila is becoming very rebellious and Luz just doesn't know what to make of it. The more she and Ian come down on Lila, the more rebellious it seems that Lila gets.

Luz isn't sure how to take Jessie's homecoming but Jessie has a few other secrets she's hiding as well. Luz is afraid that Jessie will just breeze in and then breeze right back out again. Luz doesn't want Jessie to leave again but she isn't sure she will have any say in the matter.

Then Jessie meets Dusty Matlock. Right away they just click but is that enough? Dusty has a young daughter and a very interesting story as well. Jessie meets the family when she takes photos of him and his daughter to go along with his life story. Dusty decides that he and Jessie need to get to know each other a little better but Jessie has second and third thoughts about that. After all she's not going to be around for very long. Boy, does she underestimate Dusty! She also underestimates the power of love!

When you read this one be sure to have a whole box of tissues handy because you will shed tears of sorrow and tears of joy. This is the story of a family kept apart by secrets, but given a second chance to be together and to heal through love and understanding. It reinforces the value of family support. Susan Wiggs' first hardcover is a gem of a book!

Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted April 14, 2003

The hardcover debut of award-winning author Susan Wiggs, HOME BEFORE DARK is a contemporary novel that of the emotional story of the lives and loves of two sisters in the Texas Hill Country. Facing a life-altering crisis, Jessie Ryder returns home to Texas to find the child she gave up for adoption sixteen years ago, to her very own sister, Luz.

Summary

In her career as a photojournalist, free-spirited Jessie Ryder has seen the world through her camera lens. But she's never traveled far enough to escape a painful moment that has haunted her for the past sixteen years: the day she gave her baby daughter away. Now she faces a life- altering crisis, and she's decided to fix the broken pieces of her heart and seek out Lila, even if it means she has to upset the world of Lila's adoptive mother, her very own sister, Luz.

Jessie and Luz are drawn into an emotional tug-of-war filled with moments of unexpected humor, surprising sweetness and unbearable sadness. And for Jessie, life's bittersweet irony plays its hand. She meets Dustin Matlock, a young father who has survived devastating loss. Jessie begins to see the hopeful possibilities that lie buried in the most wrenching tragedies. But as the pain, regrets and mistakes of the past rise to the surface, a new picture emerges--a picture filled with hope and promise and the redeeming power of the human heart.