{ "item_title" : "Sunlight Finds You", "item_author" : [" Laura Moriarty "], "item_description" : "READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAYRadiant...What begins as a teenage romance in 1950s Florida becomes an intimate, deeply moving story of separation, sacrifice, and self-determination — and of how early love shapes the lives we carry forward. —Christina Baker Kline“The kind of book that makes you lean closer, then hold your breath as the beauty and betrayal unfold. I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t stop hoping. What an extraordinary novel!” —Ariel LawhonA forbidden love blows open the world of a teenage girl, altering the trajectory of her life–from the author of the New York Times bestseller The ChaperoneIt’s 1949, early in the Cold War, but St. Petersburg, Florida is warm, lush, and booming with newcomers seeking sunshine and opportunity. For seventeen-year-old Nora, St. Pete feels like paradise, especially after she meets and wins over Leonard, the shy, brilliant son of transplanted New Yorkers. Nora and Leonard are soon spending balmy days and evenings together, and in her adoring, encouraging company, he grows more confident, even as he remains tender and caring. Leonard's sophisticated mother welcomes Nora into their lives, but his father distrusts her motives. When his suspicions are seemingly confirmed, Nora is forced to cut contact. In her longing and fear, she takes a chance that changes her life, exiling her from the family she loves and setting off a chain of secrets and betrayals that will follow her into adulthood. It is a mature Nora who tells the story of her turbulent past. Wiser and more worldly, she commits to an honest but compassionate account, and to a future based on trusting, first and foremost, herself.Sunlight Finds You is, ultimately, a love story set in the past that has much to say about our present. Richly layered and propulsive, it’s a book about extending forgiveness—for ourselves, and for others—and about refusing to settle for a life that is less than full.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/59/448/717/1594487170_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "32.00", "online_price" : "28.42", "our_price" : "28.42", "club_price" : "28.42", "savings_pct" : "11", "savings_amt" : "3.58", "club_savings_pct" : "11", "club_savings_amt" : "3.58", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "32.00" } }

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Laura Moriarty’s Sunlight Finds You is both a slow-burn love story and a family story, wrapped in the tensions and mores of Cold War-era Florida. As the novel opens, it’s 1947; teenage Nora and her family have moved to St. Petersburg from small-town Missouri for a fresh start. Nora’s already suffered a critical loss—her mother died suddenly when she was in elementary school—and her father has remarried the younger, more countrified Mae.

But Nora soon finds her place in her new high school, where she encounters Leonard, a shy, intellectual swimmer who’s a year ahead of her. Nora brings Leonard out of his shell, and they begin dating. Soon both are beyond smitten. Unlike Nora, Leonard is from a prosperous, snobby family that has big plans for him. After Leonard’s parents catch Nora and Leonard being reckless, Leonard’s mother coerces Nora into promising not to have anything to do with Leonard. Leonard, furious with his parents and not understanding Nora’s decision, leaves home and enlists in the Army just before the Korean War breaks out.

Longing for Leonard, but forbidden from seeing him, Nora makes a decision with life-changing consequences, and soon finds herself in an impossible position. Both Nora and Leonard take actions that seem like they can’t be undone, actions amplified by others’ miscommunications. The novel follows Nora through a period of loss and heartache in which she recounts her anger at her own gullibility as well as her justifiable feelings of betrayal by the older adults in her life.

At more than 450 pages, Sunlight Finds You feels saga-like in its telling, spanning almost two decades, though the main action takes place over only a few years. It’s a novel to sink in to rather than race through, its plot secondary to its characters. The book is especially strong in its evocative depiction of what life was like for Florida transplants in the boom years after World War II; the era’s rigid social expectations are key to the story, so class and gender issues feel integral rather than tacked on. It’s a vivid picture of a time that’s recognizable yet seems very far away.