Milk Glass Moon: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's bestselling Big Stone Gap series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the reader.

Transporting us from Ave Maria's home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Italian Alps, from New York City to the Tuscan countryside, Milk Glass Moonis the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, of a daughter's first love and a mother's heartbreak, of an enduring marriage that contains its own ongoing challenges, and of a community faced with seismic change.

All of Trigiani's beloved characters are back: Jack Mac, Ave Maria's true love, who is willing to gamble security for the unknown; her best friend and confidant, bandleader Theodore Tip-ton, who begins a new life in New York City; librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, who faces a life-or-death crisis. Meanwhile, surprises emerge in the blossoming of crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, the maturing of mountain girl turned savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, and the return of Pete Rutledge, the handsome stranger who turned Ave Maria's world upside down in Big Cherry Holler.

In this rollicking hayride of upheaval and change, Ave Maria is led to places she never dreamed she would go, and to people who enter her life and rock its foundation. As Ave Maria reaches into the past to find answers to the present, readers will stay with her every step of the way, rooting for the onetime town spinster who embraced love and made a family. Milk Glass Moonis about the power of love and its abiding truth, and captures Trigiani at her most lyrical and heartfelt.

Customer Reviews:

Milk Glass Moon

By Joe Zika "Khemprof" - September 7, 2002

Milk Glass Moon written by Adriana Trigiani is book three of a triology in the Big Stone Gap series, (Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Hollar and Milk Glass Moon). This book takes us six years further into the lives of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney and her family and friends.All of the characters that we loved in the previous books are growing up or matured and their character is coming out well in this book. The mother/daughter relationship is strong in this book, as Ave Maria doesn't want to let going of the little girl that is now maturing, her daughter is facing her first love and mother is experiencing heartbreak.This book is about life through Ave Maria's eyes, in the Southwestern part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with all of the flavor of that small town distilled into this book making it a wild ride throgh the emotional roller coaster.With twist and turns woven into the main story we learn what's happening to Ave Maria's friends, Iva Lou, Pearl Grimes, Theodore... read more

Is this our last visit to Big Stone Gap?

By Nancy R. Katz "NancyK18" - August 5, 2002

Readers of Adriana Trigiani's first two books in this trilogy, Big Stone Gap and Big Cherry Holler, certainly have a great deal to look forward to when they pick up and read Milk Glass Moon. What reader wouldn't enjoy another visit to this mountain town in West Virginia, which the author describes so beautifully and fills with such vivid characters and events. And if by chance you read this book without realizing it's the third installment in a series, you have the added pleasure of being able to go back and savor the first two books putting all of the pieces in the puzzle together.At the beginning of Milk Glass Moon, which refers to what Jack's grandfather described as a smoky, hazy moon, life is pretty much the same for Ave Marie and Jack MacChesney. Their marriage is a good and fulfilling one after several years and they look forward to the future together. Ave Marie continues to work in the pharmacy she once owned while Jack is busy with his construction company. Rounding... read more

A simple homespun tale of love and family

By Denise Bentley "Kelsana" - August 7, 2002

The third book in the Big Stone Gap Series, life with Ave and Jack Mac continues like a slow sun rising over the mountains. The love and warmth of the people that we have come to know and care for, their trials and tribulations, life and death, it is all here in the Holler.In this book we find Etta to be a blossoming teen with a mind of her own, and mom (Ave) has some hard won lessons to learn. This book spans several years and the road gets rocky at times, even down right hard to swallow, but our characters trudge on to the rewards that lie in wait around the corner. Ave comes to terms with the love, and men in her life and finds balance and peace in doing so.The author left this book open in a way that leaves the reader to believe that another book might be on the way. I will be on the look out for more of this authors talented writing and heartwarming characters. Kelsana 8/7/02