Chris Fabry’s Under A Cloudless Sky is another one of those novels that take the reader back and forth, between past and present in Beulah Mountain, West Virginia.
Beulah Mountain is a coal mining town with a dark and secret history as well as all the present dilemma’s that face today’s residents in coal mining communities across our country.
Our story jumps back and forth between the years 1933 and 2004. It centers on the friendship between two young girls—Ruby and Bean. Though they come from opposite sides of the tracks the girls become inseparable BFF’s. That is until they get swept up in a power struggle between the forces of greed and power—versus truth, justice, and integrity.
The story primarily deals with the far-reaching effects of hideous and dark truths that get buried under a mountain of coal, money, and lies.
The present-day community in Beulah Mountain must decide between an easy expediency and continuing to “cover up” what actually took place in “the massacre of 1933,” or face the wretched truth with all the consequences of its ugliness.
Of course, the ancient struggle of forgiving what seems unforgivable presents present-day residents with the same challenges their forefathers faced when they come face-to-face with their own fighting, feuding, and class warfare.
Present-day Ruby is now an old woman struggling with all the advancing infirmities that her old age brings. Her conscience won’t leave her alone and she is running out of time. She must decide whether she will “finish well” and be true to her professed Christian ideals, which means dealing honestly with her past, or take what she knows about what really happened all those years ago on Beulah Mountain, and bury her secret in the grave with her.
The beginning chapters of the book were challenging for me, as it is almost written like a movie script or screenplay, jumping back and forth between this scene, then that.
But should the reader have the same struggle I did, I highly recommend you hang in there and stay with it as the end of the story is well worth the climb, with all it’s troubling twists and turns through those Appalachian hills.
It delivers a surprising finale that totally stunned me!
I want to thank Tyndale House Publishers for sending me a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my review.
Under A Cloudless Sky is available now at all fine retail booksellers as well as Christian Book Distributors and Amazon online. I gave this book a five-star rating on Goodreads. It really is a great story and one I think you’ll enjoy. I’m eagerly looking forward to Chris Fabry’s next book!
Women With Destiny 