Title: The Moon in the Mango Tree

Author: Pamela Binnings Ewen

Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3

Summary:Set in Siam and Europe during the 1920s, a glittering decade of change, The Moon in the Mango Tree is based upon the true story of Barbara Bond, a beautiful young opera singer from Philadelphia who is forced to choose between her fierce desire for independence—a desire to create something of her own to give purpose and meaning to her life—and a deep abiding love for her faithful missionary husband whose work creates a gap between them.

 

But when you choose between two things you love, must one be lost forever?

Review: The Moon in the Mango Tree takes you into the world of young Barbara Bond, who while still in high school meets the man who will become her husband, Harvey, a young man who is finishing medical school and who will eventually require Barbara to make the choice between following him into the mission field in Siam or following her love of Opera, and the career that she has always dreamed of.  The story follow's the up's and down's of their marriage as Barbara makes the choice to give up her chance at singing under the tutelage of a famous opera singer, and goes with Harvey to his post of first a missionary doctor in Siam, and later after returning to the states for a brief sabbatical returning to Siam to become doctor to members of the royal family.

During this time reader's will become involved in the live's of the young couple as they begin a family in a foreign country, learn about the culture they are living in, and go through the many heartbreaks and struggles that Barbara experiences as a missionary wife, and Mother, and as she also feels as if she has given up a part of herself for her husband and yet he has not done the same in return.  This book truly takes you to the brink of what it takes to love someone and truly sacrifice for that love, and how faith and a sacred vow can push even the strongest of bonds to their very limit.  This book was even more enjoyable for me, because it was based loosely on the author's Grandmother's life, who is pictured below the review.