I’ll Watch the Moon

Set in St. Paul, Minnesota, during the 1948 polio epidemic, this is the story of Nova Tierney, who desperately longs for a father. It also is the story of her mother, Catherine, angry at a God in whom she no longer believes, and Josef Karski, an Auschwitz survivor whose trusting spirit refuses to be subdued, even by his heart-wrenching past.

Reviews of this book“This is a moving and wonderfully encouraging novel…one of the most realistic and significant ones I’ve read, and one that leaves a great inspiration and message of trust in God for the outcome of all things…I highly recommend it.”
— Renownmagazine.com

“In post-World War II America, nine-year-old Nova Tierney worries about Russian bombs, but mostly she wants to find a suitable candidate to marry her mother and give her a new “pa.” Catherine, a tormented soul, is terrified that the polio epidemic will touch her children. When it does strike Nova’s 13-year-old brother, Dewey, Catherine weathers the blow via an unlikely friendship with a concentration camp survivor. Dewey’s dream is to be the first man to land on the moon, and Nova promises to “watch the moon” for him until he gets better. In her third novel, Tatlock continues to weave 20th-century history into absorbing, finely crafted literary tales with issues of spirituality springing naturally from the text. For all collections and readers who enjoy realistic and hopeful family dramas.”
— Library Journal

“Sometimes the greatest love is between two people whose hearts are someplace else,” writes Tatlock. I’ll Watch the Moon, set in 1948, is the beautiful and uplifting story of a family’s relationship with a Polish holocaust survivor, Josef Karski. Told from a 9-year-old girl’s point of view, this book builds slowly, lyrically, and inexorably to a heart-wrenching yet faith-affirming climax.

I’ll Watch the Moon evocatively communicates the characters’ struggles with the problem of evil and the meaning of the Gospel, all the while transforming a story of single motherhood, abuse, and polio into a thoroughly satisfying read. This is novel with staying power.
— Kim Pettit, CBA Marketplace