If I tell you right up front, right in the beginning that I lost him, it will be easier for you to bear. You will know it’s coming, and it will hurt. But you’ll be able to prepare.Someone found him in a laundry basket at the Quick Wash, wrapped in a towel, a few hours old and close to death. They called him Baby Moses when they shared his story on the ten o’clock news – the little baby left in a basket at a dingy Laundromat, born to a crack addict and expected to have all sorts of problems. I imagined the crack baby, Moses, having a giant crack that ran down his body, like he’d been broken at birth. I knew that wasn’t what the term meant, but the image stuck in my mind. Maybe the fact that he was broken drew me to him from the start.It all happened before I was born, and by the time I met Moses and my mom told me all about him, the story was old news and nobody wanted anything to do with him. People love babies, even sick babies. Even crack babies. But babies grow up to be kids, and kids grow up to be teenagers. Nobody wants a messed up teenager.And Moses was messed up. Moses was a law unto himself. But he was also strange and exotic and beautiful. To be with him would change my life in ways I could never have imagined. Maybe I should have stayed away. Maybe I should have listened. My mother warned me. Even Moses warned me. But I didn’t stay away.
And so begins a story of pain and promise, of heartache and healing, of life and death. A story of before and after, of new beginnings and never-endings. But most of all…a love story.
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Facts You May Not Have Known About The Law Of Moses
~Art that inspired TLOM:
The Pieta by Michelangeo – Mary’s face in particular.
Vermeer’s work, the artist who took such care with the tiny details.
“I also took inspiration from street art – murals that have an almost graffiti-like appeal.My Pinterest board for Moses has all of these. http://www.pinterest.com/authoramyharmon/the-law-of-moses-by-amy-harmon/ ”
~5 Greats Moses learned from the people he interacted with as he painted:
1. Little things are often the big things 2. Objects don’t matter; relationships do 3. There is no escaping yourself – wherever you go, there you’ll be 4. Our weaknesses are usually our strengths. 5. Moses learned how to love – not just how to feel love, but how to express it.
Facts You May Not Have Known About Amy Harmon
5 things that inspire Amy Harmon: 1. Selflessness 2. Forgiveness 3. Gratitude 4. Sacrifice 5. Suffering
5 things we didn’t now about Amy Harmon: 1. I sang on Larry King once 2. I never watch TV 3. I love the Twilight series (shut up!) 4. I’ve skinny-dipped in several oceans 5. I was married at nineteen and have been married 21 years.
6 EPIC Stars
My 5 Greats about this book:
1.) The Prologue – The prologue had to be one of the best, if not the best I have ever read. I read it three times before moving on to the rest of the book. Heart touching, heart-wrenching and powerfully written, it soundly set the stage for the tears, sadness, laughter and joy to come. After reading the Prologue, I knew this was going to be an Epic read! However, despite her warning, I couldn’t prepare for the depths with which I would feel pain and sorrow. I couldn’t prepare for the tears that would fall or the longing for these characters. But Ms. Harmon took care of my heart because she gave me a beautiful love story that also filled my heart with joy and hope.
I can’t tell you how it felt. How it still feels. Words feel cheap and ring hollow and turn everything I say, everything I feel, into a tawdry romance novel full of flowery phrases designed to illicit sympathetic tears and an immediate response.
2.) Amy Harmon’s Writing – Rest assured, this was no tawdry romance novel. Nor was it full of flowery phrases. Harmon writes from the heart. You can “feel” her passion for writing within the pages of her books. She fills them beautifully with descriptions that set the mood for her stories. A bystander to it all, I was not just reading, I was there, watching, feeling, experiencing.
But the heat inside her mouth welcomed me like a warm embrace, and I sank into the softness with a sigh that would have embarrassed me had she not matched it with one of her own.
I felt like this was her best book yet. (Which says a lot considering every book from her that I’ve read, make my Favorites of the Year every year.) Her writing is captivating and draws you in. Ms. Harmon’s use of transitions was not subtle. The ends of paragraphs gave you a foretelling of what was to come. And in the word’s of Gigi, Harmon’s writing is like Mose’s art:
“Your art is awe-inspiring. It is wonderful. You make a life for yourself with your gift.”
3.) The Beautiful Love Story – This was a beautiful story of hope, trust, and unwavering love. It was about overcoming pain and anguish. It was a slow building love story between Georgia and Moses. They faced individual hurdles, pain, and tragedy and learned to navigate them and one another.
“Georgia, you better run.” – Moses
“Why would I do that, Moses? When I want you to catch me?” – Georgia
Georgia loved Moses and put everything she was into making sure he knew it. No one had ever wanted Moses. Starting from the day he was born he was shuffled from home to home and was misunderstood. So her love and friendship were suspicious to him and he was afraid to love her. In fact, it was one of his laws:
“Thou shalt not love”
“If you don’t love, then nobody gets hurt. It’s easy to leave. It’s easy to lose. it’s easy to let go.”
When heart-wrenching tragedy rocks Moses’s world, he is forever changed. His life takes on a new path. One that for a while, does not include Georgia. And Georgia is left alone to face a tragedy of her own. Moses is brought back to her because of a series of events that he could not quite explain. What develops is a beautiful relationship built on love, respect and with the hope of a future.
The kiss wasn’t hard or fast. It didn’t involve wandering hands or practiced seduction. But it was promise-laden. Heartfelt. And I didn’t move to make it more. I could have. It simmered there between us, the memory of how it had felt to fall headlong into the heat. But I didn’t want more memories. I wanted a future, so I let the soft hue of hope wrap itself around us.
4.) The 5 Greats – Just as Moses tried to live by his laws, Georgia tried to live by her 5 Greats. This is a book about gratitude, about finding the goodness in all things not dwelling on the negative. This is such a great lesson to learn. And a hard one to follow. It is so easy to fall victim to complaining and negativity. This message will stay with me forever.
“The five greats game is kind of like that. Finding beauty in ordinary things. And the only rule is gratitude.”
5.) The Characters – Georgia was a young girl with big dreams. She lived with her parents and helped with their horse therapy business. She had dreams of the rodeo circuit and making a name for herself there. I loved Georgia’s strength, wit, and candidness.
Having been abandoned by his crack-addicted mother, Moses grows up with a “secret”. It is this secret that he struggles with. He is also a gifted artist. But his art sets others uneasy and eventually causes trouble for Moses. I loved Moses’s sensibility, perseverance, and charm.
After having been shuffled from family member to family member, at the age of 18, Mose’s grandmother – Gigi takes him in. Her love was his salvation. She was a mighty woman. I adored her. She was full of wisdom and understanding.
“Moses was a prophet. But he didn’t start out that way. First he was a baby, an abandoned baby in a basket,”
And just as the biblical Moses parted the waters to let people pass and keep others away, so too Moses learned to control the water in his head.
“Water is white when it’s angry. It’s red when the sun sets. It’s blue when it’s calm. It’s black when it’s night. It’s clear when it falls.” – Moses
“So let the water fall. Let it come crashing down. Let it flow through your head and out your eyes. Water is clear when it washes the pain away, clear when it cleanses. Water has no color. Let it take the colors away.” – Gigi
These characters were solidly and brilliantly written. I found myself thinking about them when life got in the way and I had would have to step away from reading for a while.
I want to assure everyone out there who has any doubts or fears about reading this book; while you will cry, you will be gutted, it is beautiful and will leave your heart happy and full in the end. This is a MUST READ!
*ARC GRACIOUSLY provided in exchange for honest review*
5 Greats Giveaway
- Faith
- Family
- Friends
- Caffeine
- Good Books
Amy Harmon has been a motivational speaker, a grade school teacher, a junior high teacher, a home school mom, and a member of the Grammy Award winning Saints Unified Voices Choir, directed by Gladys Knight. She released a Christian Blues CD in 2007 called “What I Know” – also available on Amazon and wherever digital music is sold. She has written five novels, Running Barefoot, Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue, Making Faces and most recently, Infinity + One.Her newest book, The Law of Moses releases November 27, 2014.
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About Amy Harmon
Amy Harmon is a USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author. Amy knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what made a good story. Her books are now being published in several countries, truly a dream come true for a little country girl from Levan, Utah.
Amy Harmon has written seven novels – the USA Today Bestsellers, Making Faces and Running Barefoot, as well as Slow Dance in Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, Infinity + One and the New York Times Bestseller, A Different Blue. Her newest release, The Law of Moses, is now available. For updates on upcoming book releases, author posts and more, join Amy at www.authoramyharmon.com
What a great review and post! Thank you for participating in the Tour of Gratitude and for supporting The Law of Moses.
Thank you! It was a wonderful book, I was more than happy to participate!
Love the graphics and the pic of you! <3
MWAH! xo Thank you!