The Baker's Daughter, by Sarah McCoy

THE BAKER’S DAUGHTER
Sarah McCoy
Crown Publishers
January 2012,
$23.00, Hardcover
304 pages, 978-0307460189.








In 1944, Elsie Schmidt accompanies a German officer to an official Nazi party given on Christmas Eve in Garmisch, Germany during World War II. Elsie, a baker’s daughter is a bundle of nerves yet lighthearted as her date, Herr Josef Hubb arrives. Many surprises greet Elsie at the party. She is accosted by drunk and vile officer with lascivious intentions. Fortunately she is saved when a young boy who had just finished singing for the Germans interrupts the crime. The boy’s name is Tobias, a Jew. Also during the evening Josef stuns Elsie with a marriage proposal and presents her with an exquisite engagement ring. Josef will have to wait for Elsie’s answer. She becomes suspicious and curious when she discovers some barely visible Hebrew letters nearly etched away on the inside band. She has heard stories about camps and confiscation of property, but would Josef be involved? Later in the evening she is surprised again when Tobias arrives at her back door, he has escaped. With no time to spare, Elsie decides to hide the boy, even though the risk of death at the hands of the ruthless Gestapo is chilling.

Reba Adams is a journalist for a local magazine in El Paso, Texas, in 2007. Her assignment is to research and write about ways various cultures celebrate Christmas. She attempts to interview the elderly woman who owns Elsie’s German Bakery with little success. Finally after meeting Elsie’s daughter Jane at the bakery, she is introduced to the feisty, outspoken, hard working Elsie. Ironically, Reba wears the engagement ring her boyfriend Riki gave her around her neck, still unable to commit to marriage. Riki works for the Border Patrol along the Texas/Mexican border, assigned to capture and return of illegal aliens.

Sarah McCoy has written and expansive, multi-generational family history that is intricately complex. The result is a deep and satisfying story that involves a clever strategy of interconnected lives. Many parallels between characters over time and place become apparent. The reader is pulled across the decades with this writer’s clever craft as you follow Elsie at age seventeen in 1944, to Elsie’s life in Texas at seventy-nine. Family secrets, courage, love and forgiveness are themes that resonate throughout this richly well written novel with boundless depth that will pull the reader forward.

On a personal note: I was a captive reader unable to put it down, reluctant to see this story end.
Thanks to the author for a welcomed legacy from Elsie’s bakery: a warm encore. This will be a top pick for Bookworm’s Dinner in 2012.


Wisteria Leigh
Sunday, April 1, 2012

Disclosure: This book was won in a giveaway through Read It Forward. Many thanks.


© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2008-2012].

Review-Bloodroot, by Amy Greene

BLOODROOT
Amy Greene, Alfred A. Knopf, Dutton, March 2008, $25.95,HC,464pp, 978-0-525-95054-7.

Byrdie Lamb was said to be one of those witches from Chickweed Holler, one who as they say had “the touch”. She gave birth to five children and buried four. Her last child Clio has a wandering, adventurous spirit and is not happy staying at home with Byrdie, so it comes as no surprise when she runs away to get married. One day Clio and her husband are killed, leaving behind her daughter Myra. Byrdie’s relationship with Clio was never close, but she is devoted to Myra. They live together on Bloodroot Mountain, an inseparable pair. Brydie shares her ways with her, all is good until John Odom catches Myra's eye. Like her mama before her, Myra leaves Bloodroot Mountain to get married.

At this point, the reader picks up the story from Myra’s children’s point of view. They are twins, a son and a daughter. Myra’s life unfolds in Greene’s intricate, multi-layered story that holds together like a carefully laid mosaic. Byrdie, Doug, John Odom, Laura Odom Blevins, and finally Myra share a piece of the tale adding dimensions from their memories of the past as the truth is revealed through them. The expressive, tangible characters and breath with a hint of Appalachia in their souls. The story takes place from 1929 at the beginning of the Great Depression through today.

The pain of the characters,breathtakingly warm and genuine, will penetrate deep into your heart. Greene’s story about family, forgiveness and healing, is summarized beautifully in her words, “It’s not forgetting that heals. It’s remembering.”

Although told with a smooth measured cadence the story moves with unstoppable momentum. Sobbing as the final pages were read, I sat motionless, deep in thought with the opened book on my lap. A poignant debut with emotional depth.

Disclosure: This ARC was sent to me for review from Historical Novels Review.
Original review published in Historical Novels Review, Issue 52, May 2010 as an Editor's Choice.

Daughters of the Witching Hill, by Mary Sharratt

Daughters of the Witching Hill
by Mary Sharratt
978-0-547-069678
352 pages
April 7, 2010
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt


They call her Demdike, her name is Elizabeth Southerns, Bess to some, and she lives in Pendle Forest in Malkin Tower. She is a poor woman known to many as a healer, a blesser, but to others she is feared as a witch. In concert with her familiar spirit Tibbs, she uses her folk magic to heal the sick, both man and beast. She can foresee the future.

One day her best friend Anne, pleads with her to share her charms to use against a man who has taken advantage of her daughter. Reluctantly, Bess agrees, realizing only too late that her friend has harnessed the power for nefarious plans. She soon recognizes that her friend is “unstoppable.


Over the years, Bess tries to pass her healing craft along to her granddaughter Alizon, a reluctant recipient. Ironically, as Alizon takes a walk one day she encounters a peddler on the road. She intends to purchase pins from him in order to mend her threadbare clothes. She becomes incensed when he refuses her, and calls her a beggar and thief. Brandishing threatening words of malice, she lashes out in anger declaring, “The Devil take your mean heart.” As the peddler proceeds along, he is felled by a stroke causing Alizon to freeze in disbelief. Could she really be the instrument of his malady?

A local official eager to bring the coven of witches to justice proceeds to investigate this incident leading to his discovery of many other unexplained happenings in Pendle Forest. Through countless interviews and clever manipulation of friends and relatives, Roger Nowelle seeks to bring the accused to the hangman’s noose.

Daughters of the Witching Hill, provides an historical fiction account of the actual Lancaster witch trials of 1612. The main characters and the story are taken from the actual records filed by the court clerk, Thomas Potts in 1613.

In her novel, Mary Sharratt has uncovered an alarming tale from this pre-Reformation period England. A story of powerfully strong women, friendship, betrayal and forgiveness, it unfolds like a magnet of intrigue shedding light on how easily the lines can become blurred between Christianity and folkcraft/witchcraft, leaving the innocent to suffer with pending death. An elegiac story, historically rich and hauntingly memorable.

Review-Every Boat Turns South, by J.P.White

Every Boat Turns South
By J. P. White
Permanent Press
240 pages
1-57962-188-0
September 2009


Every Boat Turns South Every Boat Turns South is the story of two brothers. Hale the shining star with all the promise a parent could hope for and Matt his younger brother who lives in his shadow. One night ignoring his intuition, Matt follows his brother on a trip even though he feels a sense of foreboding. The dye is cast and the fate of Hale is sealed when the clandestine plan suddenly backfires.

Unable to cope with the memory of his brother and the circumstances of his death Matt disappears. Three years later, Matt arrives on his parents’ doorstep looking like “something the raccoons forgot to eat.” He carries with him more baggage than the two plastic bags in tow with a readiness to unload his guilt. His father Skip is a skeleton of his former self. He is dying a result of congestive heart failure. He has tenaciously held on, unable to give up the ship.

There is little doubt that his mom loathes rather than loves him for Matt has come home to tell Skip what really happened to Hale that night. He has come home to tell Skip about his adventurous trek of escape and survival.

This may appear to some as a simple story of an adventurous drifter running from a lot of guilt and memories over his brother’s disappearance. However, it is more than simple, it is complex, an intricate composition of themes that twist around each other as you follow the undulating currents. The book is written in alternating narratives, one is Matt talking to his father, and the other is Matt’s journal or captain’s log. The characters never appear to be who they are, adding more mystery and intrigue. “ And sometimes I have seen what men have thought they saw.”

White’s compass rose takes you on a meandering voyage that will keep you guessing until the last sail south. The poetic lyrical motion of White’s writing is spiritually uplifting with a lilting cadence. Reading is an effortless indulgence as his prose embraces the reader. With the skill of an artisan in Venice his imagery is precise beauty on paper intended to captivate the audience.


Highly recommended.

Review-The Year the Swallows Came Early

I read this book for First Look Harper Collins and I wanted to share it with everyone.


The Year the Swallows Came Early
by Kathryn Fitzmaurice
Grade Level: 4-7
Ages:9-12
Release Date 2/3/08
ISBN:978-0-06-162497-1

Review

Kathyrn Fitzmaurice has captured all the flavors of a successful first novel in The Year the Swallows Came Early. The year the swallows came early is not the only anomaly that occurs during the year you follow Eleanor “Groovy” Robinson in this delightful debut novel by Kathryn Fitzmaurice.

Eleanor Groovy Robinson is an endearing character with a heart as big as sunshine. As the story begins, Groovy is disturbed when her daddy is picked up by Officer Miguel and taken away in the backseat of the police car. Hadn't her mom read the horoscope at breakfast and it said, "Expect the unexpected." Well,she was warned. What is even more troubling to her, is discovering that her mother is the one who had him arrested. She faces a tough challenge of forgiveness when she learns why her daddy is in jail. Most troubling of all is that it is her daddy who has ruined her dreams and plans for the future.

Fitzmaurice offers a descriptive prose so precise you feel painted in her background as a voyeur to her story. Groovy’s language and character is so genuine, kids will find her naturally appealing and easy to relate to. Groovy’s dialogue is further enhanced by the author’s use of simile, metaphor and a humorous wit wise beyond the character’s age.

When you look for a great book to read, The Year the Swallows Came Early has everything you could want. It offers a picturesque setting on the Pacific coast, offbeat characters with memorable personalities, imagery that evokes an awakening of all senses and an interesting story that captures your attention.

I highly recommend this book for read aloud, read alone, literature circle or reader’s workshop groups.