To the Moon and Back

Starred review from March 12, 2018
Kingsbury continues the Baxter Family series (following In This Moment) with a pleasing tale of heartache. Thomas “Brady” Bradshaw and Jenna Dawson share the devastating experience of losing their parents in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. When they are 17, they meet and connect deeply for a few brief hours at the memorial site in 2007. Despite their intention to stay in touch, they disappear from each other’s lives for over a decade after that single meeting—but they never stop thinking about each other. Although Brady hasn’t been able to find Jenna, he waits at the site each year on the anniversary of the bombing and places his faith in God that someday they will reconnect. On a spring break trip to see the survivor tree at the site, Ashley Baxter Blake, a character from previous Baxter Family books, finds a letter addressed to Jenna that Brady left behind. Feeling compelled by God, she reaches out to Brady and offers to employ her internet sleuthing skills to help them reconnect. But when Brady and Jenna finally meet again, they figure out that the tragedy affects them in different ways; where Brady is unable to let go of his pain, Jenna desperately wants to move on from the past. In the end, they must rely on faith to overcome their past and forge a new future. Kingsbury skillfully weaves a tale of divine love coming to those in the most need in this romantic tearjerker.

May 15, 2018
Brady Bradshaw knows one thing for sure: escaping the Oklahoma City bombing alive while his mother sacrificed herself for him feels more like eternal suffering than survival. Twenty-three years later, Brady blames God for the hurt in his life and immerses himself in his firefighting work saving others from disaster. When a kind stranger offers to help connect him to mysterious Jenna, the one person who has ever truly understood and perhaps even loved him, Brady finds himself at the doorstep of healing and finding who he was meant to be. Kingsbury invites readers back to the warmth of the Baxter family, though this tale stands on its own, expertly spotlighting the faith that bolsters them through the longings and pain of earthly suffering, offering a salve for inspirational-fiction readers who have loved and lost and still yearn to be found. Kingsbury writes with seemingly effortless poetic elegance, capturing the tender, intimate moments of daily family life as well as heart-wrenching flashbacks to fatal tragedy. A moving story of survival, of faith, and of beauty from ashes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)