A Light in the Window    by J. Elizabeth Harris Order:  USA  Can Xlibris, 2003 (2003) Hardcover, Softcover     Reviewed by Sally Selvadurai Sarah Banks Keller (born and raised near Savannah, Georgia) left home at the age of eighteen, leaving behind a father whom she vowed never to see again and two sisters that she loved. Sarah's mother died after a long struggle with cancer when Sarah was very young, and her father's sister, Aunt Polly, came to stay, gamely trying to provide a female presence for the three little girls. It was all splendid for Sarah until her senior year in high school, when everything fell apart. We meet Sarah on her return to the family home - the home she left with her husband years before. Her father, David Banks, is a Southerner through and through, and he definitely does not like Sarah's husband, Matthew Keller, who has stayed behind in New York. This separation causes Sarah great anxiety that only adds to her sadness as she tries to forgive her father for allowing the horrors of her past, and as she tries to overcome her anger and build the bridges for her own, and her father's, peace of mind. Sarah has become a successful magazine writer, a career she chose as a result of her jottings for her older sister Anna, and a way of releasing the tensions of her days in her senior year '... she sat at the desk in the window of her bedroom with her little light on ... she was writing fervently'. This was probably the one thing that kept Sarah sane during those crazy months, that gave her the strength to pursue her dreams and aspirations, and to leave home with her true love. This is a poignant story of self-discovery and forgiveness, but it is marred by poor copy-editing, making the reader do a double take when passages don't sound right, only to discover that words are missing, or tenses wrong - slowing the flow of text that certainly has a powerful message for the reader. What a shame that this should have happened. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Contemporary books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews