I’m never sure whether I should research an author or book too much before I start reading, especially if it is an advanced copy. On one hand I wouldn’t mind knowing where this novel fits within their repertoire (is it a first, a tenth, a hundredth?) or are they a writer by training? And on the other hand do I really want to have those pre conceived notions? Sometimes that really works well for an author.
If I’m reading a novel that I’m not sure is a first novel or not and I read it with no pre-conceived notions and then I go back and find out that it is a first novel it often makes me reflect on it differently and that is the case with The Waiting Tree. I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and received no compensation for my honest response.
This is Moynihan’s first novel and it was a good novel; it wasn’t great, but it bordered on great which is all you can really ask for in a first novel. I vaguely remember it saying this was her first novel, but there were times where the maturity of her writing made me think this couldn’t be her first novel, but there were a few occasions which made me think it could be her first novel.
Yay for another book that counts for multiple challenges (Mount TBR, Back to the Classics and The Classics Club)! (It’s a doozy, sorry for the length!)
For some reason, this novel just felt more real and better developed than Tenino’s first novel in this series. 
This is an example of a novel that could’ve been even better if they used a better copy editor, and this has nothing to do with the poor formatting of Amazon’s conversion process from the publisher provided copy. This is my honest response and I received no compensation.
I’m so relieved to say this book was not at all what I thought it would be. And what I thought it would be was actually mentioned somewhat tongue-in-cheek at one point in the novel. So I’m going to take this moment to applaud Sexton for this! In addition I’m going to reiterate that there does not need to be a lot of sex in a novel for it to be a great novel! I’m pretty sure sex didn’t appear in this novel until after the half way point and it was worth the wait.
