Under a Maui Moon: A Novel (The Hideaway Series)
Carissa doesn’t know who she is anymore. She and her husband, Richard, are recent empty nesters; Richard is spending more and more time at work counseling his volatile clients and less time at home with his wife; his clients are starting to show up at the house at night causing Carissa to feel scared in her own home; and to top it all off, Carissa’s boss informs her that she’s been “let go.” She wonders where God is in all of this since He doesn’t seem to be around to protect her—and she’s already stopped trusting her husband.
In the midst of her world tilting off center, she’s offered time at a hideaway on Maui. Hiding seems like the best way to respond to life’s overload, and the thought of being alone sounds like just the right balm to soothe her wounded heart.
The languid Hawaiian sun, white beaches, and warm-hearted people bring respite, but meeting handsome Kai causes Carissa to toy with the idea of being romantically involved with him. Then, under a Maui moon, she looks to God for guidance and hope for the future. That’s when she discovers His hand still is on her life, and that love is closer than she ever realized.
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Community Reviews
“Twenty-four years of marriage, one grown son, a thousand memories, yet only a single tear.” Carissa suddenly finds herself jobless and potentially spouseless with an empty nest and a key to a door in Maui. Overwhelmed by life and love (or the lack thereof), Carissa jetsets to an island hideaway for the vacation she never imagined and the adventure she never knew she needed.
Are men who struggle worth going after and helping through to the other side of addiction? Should she “attempt to be a courageous, strong, and determined woman who had chosen to ‘stay’?” Will she meet someone new or discover “new love with an old husband”? “Honesty and transparency were powerful dragon slayers.” As Carissa experiences “the all-encompassing beauty…in the midst of the fragile, broken world,” she begins to wonder if perhaps “everything is redeemable.”
“The plump Maui moon hung overhead, looking fuller and closer than ever. It wasn’t like the half-moon that had stared unblinkingly at her when she had first arrived. Nor was it the mysterious floating moon that had cast its waving ribbon of light on the ocean when she was camping. This moon was stronger and brighter and was beaming at her…The shadows of the craters across the face of the moon gave a strong impression of a…life-giving grin…in the midst of her grave loss.”
“‘It’s the face of Ke Akua [God]. I think he’s smiling on us’...a silver jet stream appeared just beneath the golden orb, etching a smudged line through the illuminated night sky…the airplane seemed to be swimming through the foreboding midnight blue, determined to reunite some other woman with the one she loved…She had a pretty good idea the next chapter of their love story was about to begin right here, in this blessed hideaway, tucked in under a Maui moon.” Amen and amene.
Robin Jones Gunn’s Under a Maui Moon is a story that comes from the heart that will most certainly touch the heart of its readers. Don’t just dip your toes in the water; “you must get all the way in or it’s not worth the journey.”
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