Book Review

Valley of the Moon by Melanie Gideon was an interesting and unique time-travel novel that reminds me of the play/movie Brigadoon. It’s a love story, and a story about being caught in the middle of knowing what you want and what is best for your child.

Lux Lysander, a single mother, struggles to make ends meet in 1975 San Francisco. When her five-year-old son visits his grandparents, Lux goes on a camping trip in the Sonoma Valley. When she wakes around midnight, she finds a mysterious fog around her. Following a light through the fog, she ends up in a sunny meadow. Here she meets people living in an idyllic farming community called Greengage where time literally moves slower.

Since the 1906 earthquake, the people of Greengage have been cut off from the world. A fog surrounds the community that will kill anyone trying to go through it. Lux is the first successful person. Somehow she is able to come and go. Each time, Lux must be careful to return to her own time while the gate is still open to get back to her son.  One time she chooses to stay a bit too long with a sick friend, has to wait for the doorway to reopen, and ends up losing a whole year in her time. That mistake causes problems between her and her son, who felt abandoned.

The more visits Lux makes to Greengage, the more she feels torn between the two worlds.  She loves the beauty of Greengage as well as the sense of community. There is a simplicity in their lives that calls to her. She has a responsibility to her son, a child of the seventies’ world, but she longs for the connections and peace of Greengage. Like the story of Brigadoon, she has to make a choice about which place she wants to live.

Personally, a 1906 farming community isn’t my idea of paradise, but I was fine with that being what Lux wanted. I loved the friendships she built at Greengage, especially Joseph. It was interesting that the doorway to Greengage wasn’t always open. That made it hard on the characters on both sides when years would go by between Lux’s visits.

Valley of the Moon  by Melanie Gideon may be a book for you if you like time travel books like Outlander or The Time Traveler’s Wife, or are a fan of books by Sarah Addison Allen. I enjoyed the book! I give Valley of the Moon a strong four stars.