Let's Bust a Recap : The Undoing of Saint Silvanus

About the time I was putting a hold on Beth Moore's new memoir All My Knotted-Up Life at the library, it came to my remembrance that she had a novel published back in 2016. I really wanted to read it back when it came out, but never managed to get my hands on a copy. And since I apparently do not give two flying rips about my own 2023 book list, I promptly checked it out from the library to read while I waited on the memoir to come available. 

This is the only novel that Beth Moore has had published, and it tells you something about me as a reader that—though I've done several of her Bible studies—the first book of hers I actually picked up to read is her one piece of fiction. This is a chunky, thick hardcover clocking in at nearly 500 pages, and I was hooked from beginning to end.

We open on some New Orleans cops finding a homeless drunk dead in the street. It eventually comes to light that the man is Rafe Fontaine and he was murdered. On the other side of the country in San Francisco, his daughter Jillian is contacted by her grandmother's assistant Adella and invited to come to New Orleans for the funeral at her grandmother's expense. Jillian hasn't seen or heard from her father or grandmother since she was a small child, but she decides to go, only to find out her grandmother hadn't invited her at all. This is all Adella Atwater's doing. Her grandmother lives in an old Methodist church (Saint Silvanus) that has been converted into a small apartment building (now called Saint Sans) where she manages her three quirky tenants. After her boyfriend's infidelity comes to light back in San Francisco, Jillian finds herself back in New Orleans living at Saint Sans indefinitely. Throughout the course of her father's murder investigation, Jillian has to navigate her fraught relationship with her grandmother and figure out who she is and who she wants to be. 

Another element to this novel were brief flashbacks to the 1920s when Saint Silvanus was being built. There's a dark history within those walls that we the readers slowly piece together throughout the novel. 

Now, there is quite the host of colorful characters and a lot of moving parts to keep up with in The Undoing of Saint Silvanus, but overall I think Moore was successful in weaving together a compelling, well-developed novel that kept me interested from beginning to end. If you're looking for a thrilling murder mystery, this book is for you. If you like your novels to have a little bit of everything—action, drama, romance—this book is for you. If you're looking for a beautiful story of grace and redemption, this book is for you. If you like your characters memorable and fully fleshed out, this book is for you. And if you appreciate a good, gravy-thick Southern setting and tone in your writing, this book is definitely for you. 

The drawbacks for me were minimal, but they were there. I never fully appreciated the significance of the flashbacks or why Moore chose to work them into the story. I found Jillian who is arguably the main character to be very unlikable for most of the novel, and her character's development toward the end seemed a bit sudden, maybe even forced. 

But mostly, I really enjoyed The Undoing of Saint Silvanus and would recommend it. I don't know if Beth Moore will ever find the time to write another novel, but if she does, I will be first in line to read it. 

What do you like in a good, long novel?