Yesterday’s Sun – Amanda Brooke

Title : Yesterday’s Sun
Author : Amanda Brooke
First published in : 2012
Genre : Contemporary, fantasy
Edition : Harper
Pages : 323
Status : read from 08/21/20 to 08/30/20
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Synopsis : A suspenseful tale of free will versus fate – an extraordinary story of love and family, and the risks we take to break free from the past.
Newlyweds Holly and Tom have just moved into their dream home, a charming English carriage house in the London suburbs. A rising television journalist, Tom can’t wait to fill the house with children. Holly, a budding artist, isn’t so sure. She fears that as a mother, she will repeat the terrible mistakes of her own neglectful parents. But Holly and Tom are young and deeply in love, and they have time to decide.
While renovating the house, Holly finds an unusual crystal orb – the missing top to the moondial in their garden. She soon discovers this is no ordinary timepiece. Under full moon’s brilliant light, it reveals the future – a future in which Tom cares for their baby daughter… alone.
Holly’s new friend in the village, an elderly woman named Jocelyn, reveals the cursed secret of the moondial’s power. Now Holly must choose between herself and her future child – a painful decision that will ultimately teach her about motherhood and sacrifice… and reveal how far she will go in the name of love.

Review : Yesterday’s Sun is the first book by Amanda Brooke I read. Before discovering it, I didn’t give any attention to the synopsis because I wanted to be surprised by the main theme. I only knew it was about motherhood and hard decisions to take, as it was written on the cover. Now I have finished the novel and read the synospsis, I think it was the best choice I could do. Indeed, I believe there are too many details in the synopsis compared to the whole story.
When I started with the prologue and the first chapters, I had high expectations. I thought this novel would be more active, with less descriptions. However, there are long passages and repetitiions which slow down the rhythm of the plot. Sometimes, I wanted to go to another chapter just to be sure there would be something new about Holly’s destiny, but I resisted as I don’t like skipping some pages. What I reproach to this book, this is definitely its lack of action. I had the impression to follow a list of individual moments of their lives and not a real story. It is really bad as I am convinced that the theme and the way the author wanted to deal with it had a good potential. Nonetheless, as for me, the novel was too long if we compare to what is really going on inside. The treatment of the plot is too superficial, a little bit deepness in the feelings of Holly and Tom would have been great.
Talking about the characters, they are interesting to discover and I really appreciated the values they spread throughout the novel. But because of what I explained earlier, I had some difficulties to feel sympathy towards Holly, but also towards the other ones, except for Jocelyn. I won’t say too much about her because I don’t want to spoil you if you plan to read Yesterday’s Sun, but she is certainly one of the most important characters of the story, even if she is not introduced to the readers as such.
Amanda Brooke’s writing is enjoyable and we can feel her own experience of motherhood behind her words. I think this is one of the strong points of the novel. She definitely knows what she is talking about.
To conclude, I would have imagined something else to treat the main theme of the story, beginning with more actions and less descriptions. However, I liked the final plot twist and what it means for the future of the characters. Yesterday’s Sun is a pleasant book to read.