Review of Lynn Austin's All Things New

In Lynn Austin’s most recent novel, All Things New, a young woman returns to what had been her antebellum home at White Oak Plantation in Virginia. The difficulties surrounding the reconstruction years of the Old South are brought to light as a family tries to cope with the bitterness of having enemies who so violently ravaged what the family had loved. The war of northern aggression had turned what was once beautiful and opulent into a tattered remembrance of its former glory. The land wasn’t the only casualty though; the family has to deal with a war that has claimed the lives of the father by pneumonia and one of the sons in battle. The other son, Daniel, has emotionally changed as well from what he has seen in the war. Lizzie, a freed slave, stays on with the family to help them rebuild the plantation.
The young woman, Josephine, feels bitterness against God who has seemed to ignore her prayers. Only when a young man, Alexander, enters into her life with his vibrant faith and commitment to the Word of God does she begin to heal.
Austin does a tremendous job in contrasting the old with the new just as Rev. 21:4-5 say in the opening pages of the book. The artistic description of the Old South beauty juxtaposed against the devastation of the current reality of having to rebuild into something new is interwoven with a faith journey that compels the reader to feel what Josephine felt, to cry with her in her loss, and to ultimately come to peace with her God.
I was given this book by Bethany House in order to provide a reader’s review. I received no compensation and all opinions are my own.