In 1975, Lux Lysander is struggling with life as a single mom in San Francisco. So when her son goes to stay with his grandparents for two weeks, she's thrilled to go camping alone in Sonoma Valley, also known as the Valley of the Moon. She's enjoying herself, until she's startled awake in the middle of the night.
In 1906, Joseph--a visionary far ahead of his time--has planned Greengage farm to be self-supporting, a place where men and women of all ethnicities can work together peacefully. The farm is functioning perfectly, much to Joseph's satisfaction, when there's a sudden, terrible earthquake. When the ground settles down, Greengage residents discover that the farm is surrounded by a dense and deadly fog, which for months keeps Greengage in isolation. Until, incredibly, Lux Lysander comes striding through the fog.
A beautifully written story, Valley of the Moon captures Lux's longing to be part of something bigger than herself, and the agony of facing a choice between her beloved son in the modern world and the community she comes to love. Comparisons to Brigadoon are inevitable, but Melanie Gideon (Wife 22) transcends the potentially hokey plot to craft a wonderful story about belonging, love and the aching certainty that there's something more out there.
Defying genre categorization, Valley of the Moon could be an excellent choice for a book club seeking a thoughtful yet approachable novel, and is sure to appeal to fans of Time and Again or The Time Traveler's Wife. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm