Red Mill Bookstore Review

The Red Mill Bookstore is the latest in Lin Stepp's Smoky Mountain series. I've enjoyed  other books in this series—Happy Valley, Downsizing, Eight at the Lake, Seeking Ayita, and Shop on the Corner—and I also enjoyed this one. 

Some of the resident cats were interested in the book:

Grover: Look Otis! I heard there's a black and white cat in this book.
Otis: Grover, I don't think it's about you, though.

Grover is right—there is a black and white cat. Plus an orange cat and a calico.

Chloe: Did you hear that, Rufus? There are cats that look like us!
Rufus: I'll take a look after I finish my nap.

 

Like some of Stepp's other Smoky Mountain novels, The Red Mill Bookstore features a main character who is faced with a problem and who either finds her way to a new home or else finds her way back to her home or hometown. 

Ella Quinn is left adrift when her boss and good friend dies, and the Boston bookstore where Ella works must close. Ella had hoped to eventually own the bookstore, but now her dream can't come true. To make matters, Ella's father calls from England with news that her grandmother in Townsend Tennessee broke her arm and needs someone to help her. He's already arranged for Ella's plane ticket and will cover her expenses—but she has to leave Monday and it's already Friday. Ella goes to her condo and starts packing. While her two best friends visit, her boyfriend shows up and is surprised that Ella isn't dressed for the symphony. She tries to explain that she forgot and that she has to leave soon to help her grandmother and she'll be gone about six weeks, but her boyfriend is angry that she's leaving—after he spent $100 each for the tickets that will now go to waste. Ella's friend Cora, still dressed up for work, offers to go with him so the tickets will be used.

When Ella arrives in Tennessee, a childhood friend—Jesse Helton, whom she hasn't seen in fourteen years—is waiting at the airport to drive her to Townsend. While Jesse works in his family's business, Helton Repairs, he also sometimes works for Ella's father, Hershel Quinn, who owns the Red Mill. So, Jesse and Ella will be seeing a lot of each other while she's in town. 

Ella soon reconnects with family and neighbors and is a great help to her grandmother. Ella soon loves the town, the mill and the activities surrounding it, her family, neighbors, and—eventually—a certain young man. But her dream was to own a bookstore, and—eventually—this dream comes true. To find out how, you need to read the book.

One of the things I liked about The Red Mill Bookstore is the map that Stepp includes:

In The Red Mill Bookstore, setting is important. Stepp includes many of the local attractions—for instance, hiking trails and festivals. Townsend is a real town in Tennessee and some of its festivals, such as the Hot Air Balloon Festival mentioned in the book really do happen. 

The Red Mill Bookstore is rich in family and community values, a sense of commitment, and the importance of faith. While the story has several themes, probably the two most important  are that you can go home again and that dreams can come true. 

Rufus: We are a family, too!

Orville: Of course Rufus, We're brothers!

Chloe: Well, I'm not kin to you two, but we do share a bed.

The cats agree with me that The Red Mill Bookstore is a good read. 

Skippy: Nothing like reading a good book before you take a nap!

Rufus: There's nothing like curling up with a good book!

The book debuts on April 1, but you can pre-order from Amazon.

~

Shop on the Corner: A Review

I've read all of Lin Stepp's Mountain Home Books and have really enjoyed them: Happy Valley, Downsizing, Eight at the Lake, and Seeking Ayita. But Shop on the Corner —coming out in mid-March but now available for pre-order from Amazon—is my favorite one yet! Check out the cover:

Set in the small town of Waynesville NC, Shop on the Corner is about small town life, starting over, the importance of family and faith, and love. One of the things I especially like about Stepp's books is that she provides a map of the town to help the reader see what is where. Shop on the Corner, of course, has a map. 

While some of Stepp's novels feature a main character who finds her way back to her home or hometown, Shop on the Corner features a young woman—Laura O'Dell—who leaves her  hometown and relocates in another small town. The back cover blurb tells you why—and it also foreshadows what will happen: 

Thanks to prodding from her friend Lillian and thanks to the Internet, Laura soon connects with a North Carolina realtor who just happens to have a building for sale—a building that was formerly used as an upholstery shop—and, like Laura's current building, happens to be located on a corner. Without telling Georgina that she's leaving or even where she's going, Laura moves to Waynesville and sets up shop. Laura and Mitchell, of course, become involved with each other. He helps her find experienced employees to assist her in the shop, shows her around the town, introduces her to his family, and—well, you can figure where this going to lead. Unfortunately, there are a few complications, but the story—like the other Mountain Home books—ends happily.

Laura and Mitchell are likeable and believable characters. So is the setting—which is a real town in North Carolina. The plot has some interesting twists to keep you guessing. While there are a few unsavory characters, Shop on the Corner is still an upbeat, positive read.

Usually my cats help with my reviews. Otis, how about you? What did you think about the book?

Otis: I'm sun-bathing, so I didn't get a chance to read it
I looked at the cover and liked it. Isn't that enough?

No, Otis. It isn't. But I liked the cover, too. Claudine, what about you?

Claudine: I'm too busy doing yoga to read.
And I heard the two cats in this book only sit on the couch. 
I want those cats to  play a big part!

Fine. I'll ask your brother. Orville, did you read the book?

Orville: I'm doing yoga too, and if I move, I'll kick Jim-Bob.
If I wake him up, he'll be real mad.  So I can't read now.
Ask somebody else.

OK. I'll do that. There are plenty of other cats on this bed. Hmm. Tanner and Grover are sleeping, but Rufus is awake. Rufus, how about you? What did you The Shop on the Corner?

Rufus: Well, I liked it, My brother Grover did too.
Grover especially liked the border collie because
Grover is black and white like border collies. 
That's why Tanner liked it too. Tanner is old enough
to remember when a nice border collie lived here.

I'm glad you liked the book, Rufus. And you too, Grover and Tanner.

Rufus: I recommend this book. I live in a small town
 and I had to relocate a few years ago, so I could identify.

Thank you, Rufus. I'm glad you could relate.

Rufus: Well, I'm related to three other cats in this house.

Grover: I'm related to Rufus and Orville and Claudine!
I'm glad I'm not related to Jim-Bob. He's kind of grouchy.

Thanks cats, for your help. I'm glad you enjoyed the book, and I think most people will like it too.

~

Historical Fiction & Anachronisms

Am I the only one bummed by inaccuracies in historical fiction? 

When I read historical fiction, I expect the historical parts to be accurate. If an author really must deviate from historical accuracy, a disclaimer in the introduction is helpful. My novel  Patches on the Same Quilt isn't historical fiction but it is set in the past, so I added this info to the novel's introduction: 

Recently I read this book, which explains a lot of anachronisms/errors/etc, so I decided to point out some anachronisms in a historical novel I'd read a few months earlier.

 Set in early Jamestown, this novel had some anachronisms that leapt out at me.

             

For instance,  the narrator writes "Neither did God, I am fairly sure (though I am no Puritan), intend for women to sport the corset or bodice. . . ." While corsets may have existed in parts of Europe, the term "corset," according to Etymonline, meaning 'stiff supporting and constricting undergarment for the waist, worn chiefly by women to shape the figure,' is from 1795." Nine decades earlier, when this character was writing, she—as did all women in Jamestown—wore stays. Stays were the precursor of the corset (and the bodice, or pair of bodies, was the late 1500s precursor of stays, though there was some over-lapping). The verb "sport" meaning "to wear" is from 1778. Prior to then, "sport" referred to taking pleasure or amusement. Arrgh! Two anachronisms in one sentence!

But the anachronisms get worse:  The narrator observes a man, standing watch on the east bulwark, who was "dressed to the nines" and had grown a "Vandyke beard, a new style he had carefully cultivated in the last two months." FYI: This scene is in January of 1610. 

 Wikipedia offers this info about the particular style of beard: "A Van Dyke (sometimes spelled Vandyke, or Van Dyck) is a style of facial hair named after the 17th-century Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641)." I doubt eleven-year-old Anthony would have much facial hair in 1609 (when the guy at Jamestown started his beard, and—even if he did—he certainly wasn't influential enough then to popularize the style. As for "dressed to the nines, "the earliest written evidence of this phrase ["to the nine"] appeared in the late 18th century in the poetry of Robert Burns. Its meaning is 'to perfection; just right.'" Plus "Dressed to the nines" dates from the mid-19th century—not the early 17th century. 

Some other anachronisms: "On the final day of February, a single daffodil appeared.Where it came from, I wasn't sure." I'm not sure either.  From this site:  "It is believed that daffodils might've arrived in the 1600s, but they don't appear in the written record until the early 1700s." According to this site:  "After the establishment of the Virginia Company in 1606 and the settlement of Jamestown colony in 1609, daffodil bulbs were transported by sailing ships from Britain to America, often by women colonists who brought them along as a reminder of home." So—bulbs arrived after 1609, and it took until spring for them to bloom after they were planted. 

Another cringeworty anachronism: "I swallowed my share of snow that winter. It was plentiful and convenient. We would awaken to the wedding-white present and . . . " Arrgh! While the first white wedding dress "originated with Anne of Brittany on the occasion of her marriage to Louis XII of France in 1499, it wasn’t until 1840, when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert, that the white dress was made popular." Also, until the 1900s, most brides wore their best outfit, not a special dress.

Another scene has a Jamestown maidservant treating a severe wound with rum and honey in Nov. 1609. I knew honeybees weren't in the New World then, so I looked up when they arrived: "Honey bees first landed in North America in 1622, when the Virginia Company of London sent some bees to the governor of Jamestown with a note that said 'the preservation and encrease (sic) whereof we recommend to you'. Eighty years later, the honey bee population in Virginia was thriving." But the honeybee population was nonexistant at Jamestown in 1609. Perhaps one of the 300 who survived the hurricane and made to Jamestown in August 1609 brought some honey? If so, how did it last three months in a time of very short supply of food? Likely if anyone did bring honey, it was soon consumed.

I'm sure there were other anachronisms in that novel, but those above were the ones that were obvious to me.

Speaking of anachronisms, some of you long-time readers of this blog might remember an issue I had several years ago with a novel set in the 1750s in the Blue Ridge area of Virginia. My problem: I could not believe that a character rode a mule from the Blue Ridge Mountains to eastern Virginia because I was sure mules didn't exist in the Blue Ridge Mountains then. However, I discovered that was hard to prove. I found wills of men who died in the1700s that mentioned sheep, cattle, horses, oxen, and other livestock, but I couldn't find a will that mentioned mules. 

That novel's author pointed to me out that mules were at Jamestown in the very early years of settlement, but I could find no source to support her claim—and, if any mules were at Jamestown in 1609, they were soon consumed. I did, however, find information that horses had been transported: 

“Six Mares and two Horses” were loaded onto the Blessing in Plymouth, England, in May 1609 for a three-month voyage to Jamestown. Transporting horses was expensive and tricky because they had to be secured into slings for the entire voyage to avoid breaking their legs on the rolling motion of the ship. 

Alas, these horses didn't survive the starving time in the winter of 1609 either. "As the winter dragged on, they ate rats, cats, dogs, snakes 'or what vermin or carrion soever we could light on.'  In this starving time winter they even butchered the horses brought from England the summer before." A few years later, horses again arrived in Jamestown. But there was no mention that mules were transported.

From Life at Four Miles an Hour—Thomas Jefferson's World of the Horse: 

In 1609, the first Virginia horses arrived in Jamestown, but unfortunately did not survive the winter.  At this time, as far as is known, none of the Native Americans in the Tidewater Virginia area owned or used horses.  In 1611 Jamestown settlers were pleased when another shipment of seventeen horses arrived.  Offspring of these small Irish and Scottish breeds eventually were crossbred with descendants of the Spanish horses from Florida producing a small sized horse breed good for both riding and farm work.

Again, no mules yet. Not until 1785 did George Washington receive a jack from the king of Spain and began breeding work mules at Mount Vernon. It wasn't long until Virginia had a sizable work mule population, but even then it took a while for mules to reach the Blue Ridge region. For a long time I couldn't pinpoint a time—until I read a copy of This Pleasant Land. From that book I learned that mules came into the Blue Ridge in the 1820s—more than 60 years after the author of that novel assumed they were there.

But back to Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders: As I read it, I noticed a blunder that  had to do with horses. On p. 136, in a section dealing with travel, is this info: "A specific type of horse, the palfrey, was bred for carrying well-off travelers. Palfreys are trained to use a particular gait, called an 'amble' (sort of like power walking for horses), which is faster than a walk." Palfreys were indeed bred for their smooth gait but I doubt they were bred for only "well-off travelers." The smooth gait was indeed bred into the palfrey, but they weren't trained for it. [In my lifetime, I have owned two easy-gaited horses—a racking mare and a Tennessee Walker—whose gait was bred into them. In fact, my racking mare and I won several ambling classes at local shows.] 

The section on undergarments in MU and OB is confusing. Those of us who have studied historical costumes —FYI: I took a "History of Costume" class in college—know that from about the seventeenth through the 18th century, a woman only wore two undergarments: her shift and her stays. (No she didn't wear underpants—they wouldn't become popular until about 1830.) But on p. 9 of MU and OB :  "If the woman wore a corset it went on over the shift. . . ."  Historically speaking, that woman would have worn stays—the precursor of the corset—over her shift prior to the late 1700s. Or, during the latter half of the 1500s, she would have worn a bodice (a pair of bodies). Sometimes the terms bodice, stays, and corset are used interchangeably now, but historically they belonged to different time periods. The women at colonial Jamestown, as mentioned earlier, would wear stays. 

Nonetheless, I did find Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders an interesting read. It isn't all inclusive, but it's a good place to start if you're interested in historical fiction and it offers an extensive bibliography. If you're a writer, this is a book you might want to read. 

Many readers, I'm sure, aren't bothered by anachronisms—or possibly don't even notice them. 

But, alas, I am—and often I notice.

~

Blatant plug for my own work: If you're interested in my novel, Patches on the Same Quilt, it's available from Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Patches-Same-Quilt-Becky-Mushko/dp/1499616082 .

Seeking Ayita Review

 Seeking Ayita is author Lin Stepp's latest book in her Mountain Home series. I've blogged about the three others in this stand-alone series: Happy Valley, Downsizing, and Eight at the Lake.

Like the others in the series, Seeking Ayita is strong on family values and a sense of place—and it involves a woman returning to her roots and finding herself. 

The novel begins when Yoni—a full-blooded Cherokee married to a Welshman and living in Hawaii—is dying from complications following a stroke, she makes her daughter Annalise promise to to take her ashes for burial in Cherokee, NC,  and also for Annalise to stay a few months and reconnect with her grandmother and her heritage. (Annaliese's middle name is Ayita, a Cherokee name.) Annalise, a widow with a young daughter, doesn't want to go. She's visited Cherokee a few times when she was younger, but Hawaii is her home. Plus she thinks her father will need her after he returns from his visit Wales. But she made a promise. . . . 

From the back of the book:

Of course, there are complications and obstacles to be overcome as well as decisions to be made. And therein lies an interesting tale. (FYI—I was so caught up in the story that I finished the book in two days.)

Like Stepp does in her other Mountain Home books, she includes a map in Seeking Ayita  and has her main characters visit places and hike the trails in the area. Having the map added to my enjoyment of the book.

I particularly enjoyed the book's themes—besides the strong sense of place and the importance of family, there was a lot of emphasis on the importance of heritage, particularly Cherokee heritage. I learned a lot about Cherokee customs from reading Seeking Ayita.

Seeking Ayita would be a good selection for a book club to study and discuss, and Stepp includes a study guide.

I thoroughly enjoyed Seeking Ayita, and I think the cats—who keep me company while I read it—enjoyed it too.

CHARLOTTE: I liked that there was a cat named Stella in the book.

ARLO: I liked that Stella didn't want to be petted by strangers.

OTIS: I got scared when Stella went missing.

RUFUS: I was happy when Stella got rescued.

OTIS: I was too, Rufus! It was a purrfect rescue—and a good book.

If you're seeking a good read with interesting characters, some twists and turns, and a satisfying resolution, you'll likely enjoy Seeking Ayita.

Seeking Ayita will release on April 1, 2023, but it's available to pre-order from Amazon now: https://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Ayita-Lin-Stepp/dp/B0BTRYN721/      

~ 

                             

Thoughts on Quilts

When I was a kid, I enjoyed hearing stories from the old-timey days. As an adult, I also enjoy reading stories from the old-timey days. I enjoy historical fiction and particularly Appalachian literature. And I've always liked quilts. I own several, and I've been sleeping under one quilt or another since I was very young. Here's a quilt that was made by my great-grandmother, Frances Nace of Lithia, well over a hundred years ago:

I recently read Aunt Jane of Kentucky, a Kindle e-book I  got for free from Amazon. It's also available in paperback for $6.99.  Aunt Jane of Kentucky is a series of short stories in which "Aunt Jane," an elderly widow, tells her niece about things that she remembers from a long time ago. I really enjoyed her old-timey stories. 

Eliza Calvert Hall (1856-1935) first published this book in 1907, and the version I read had been digitized from a print version. Oddly, the first letter of the first word in each chapter was missing, so I figured it was in a fancy font that didn't survive the digitizing process. But the book was so interesting, a few typos here and there didn't matter.

One of the chapters I especially liked was Chapter III,  "Aunt Jane's Album," which was mostly about quilts the fictional character had made. Hall skillfully blended stories about the quilts with Aunt Jane's philosophies.

Some excerpts from Chapter III, “Aunt Jane’s Album" 

"But there never was any time wasted on my quilts, child. I can look at every one of 'em with a clear conscience. I did my work faithful; and then, when I might 'a' set and held my hands, I'd make a block or two o' patchwork, and before long I'd have enough to put together in a quilt. I went to piecin' as soon as I was old enough to hold a needle and a piece o' cloth, and one o' the first things I can remember was settin' on the back door-step sewin' my quilt pieces, and mother praisin' my stitches. Nowadays folks don't have to sew unless they want to, but when I was a child there warn't any sewin'-machines, and it was about as needful for folks to know how to sew as it was for 'em to know how to eat; and every child that was well raised could hem and run and backstitch and gether and overhand by the time she was nine years old. Why, I'd pieced four quilts by the time I was nineteen years old, and when me and Abram set up housekeepin' I had bedclothes enough for three beds.
 
"I've had a heap o' comfort all my life makin' quilts, and now in my old age I wouldn't take a fortune for 'em. Set down here, child, where you can see out o' the winder and smell the lilacs, and we'll look at 'em all. You see, some folks has albums to put folks' pictures in to remember 'em by, and some folks has a book and writes down the things that happen every day so they won't forgit 'em; but, honey, these quilts is my albums and my di'ries, and whenever the weather's bad and I can't git out to see folks, I jest spread out my quilts and look at 'em and study over 'em, and it's jest like goin' back fifty or sixty years and livin' my life over agin. 
            "There ain't nothin' like a piece o' caliker for bringin' back old times, child, unless it's a flower or a bunch o' thyme or a piece o' pennyroy'l—anything that smells sweet. Why, I can go out yonder in the yard and gether a bunch o' that purple lilac and jest shut my eyes and see faces I ain't seen for fifty years, and somethin' goes through me like a flash o' lightnin', and it seems like I'm young agin jest for that minute." Aunt Jane's hands were stroking lovingly a "nine-patch" that resembled the coat of many colors. "Now this quilt, honey," she said, "I made out o' the pieces o' my children's clothes, their little dresses and
 waists and aprons. Some of 'em's dead, and some of 'em's grown and married and a long way off from me, further off than the ones that's dead, I sometimes think. But when I set down and look at this quilt and think over the pieces, it seems like they all come back, and I can see 'em playin' around the floors and goin' in and out, and hear 'em cryin' and laughin' and callin' me jest like they used to do before they grew up to men and women, and before there was any little graves o' mine out in the old buryin'-ground over yonder." 
            Wonderful imagination of motherhood that can bring childhood back from the dust of the grave and banish the wrinkles and gray hairs of age with no other talisman than a scrap of faded calico! 
            The old woman's hands were moving tremulously over the surface of the quilt as if they touched the golden curls of the little dream children who had vanished from her hearth so many years ago. But there were no tears either in her eyes or in her voice. I had long noticed that Aunt Jane always smiled when she spoke of the people whom the world calls "dead," or the things it calls "lost" or "past." These words seemed to have for her higher and tenderer meanings than are placed on them by the sorrowful heart of humanity.
            But the moments were passing, and one could not dwell too long on any quilt, however well beloved. Aunt Jane rose briskly, folded up the one that lay across her knees, and whisked out another from the huge pile in an old splint-bottomed chair. 
            "Here's a piece o' one o' Sally Ann's purple caliker dresses. Sally Ann always thought a heap o' purple caliker. Here's one o' Milly Amos' ginghams—that pink-and-white one. And that piece o' white with the rosebuds in it, that's Miss Penelope's. She give it to me the summer before she died. Bless her soul! That dress jest matched her face exactly. Somehow her and her clothes always looked alike, and her voice matched her face, too. One o' the things I'm lookin' forward to, child, is seein' Miss Penelope agin and hearin' her sing. Voices and faces is alike; there's some that you can't remember, and there's some you can't forgit. I've seen a heap o' people and heard a heap o' voices, but Miss Penelope's face was different from all the rest, and so was her voice. Why, if she said 'Good mornin'' to you, you'd hear that 'Good mornin' all day, and her singin'—I know there never was anything like it in this world. My grandchildren all laugh at me for thinkin' so much o' Miss Penelope's singin', but then they never heard her, and I have: that's the difference. My grandchild Henrietta was down here three or four years ago, and says she, 'Grandma, don't you want to go up to Louisville with me and hear Patti sing?' And says I, 'Patty who, child?' Says I, 'If it was to hear Miss Penelope sing, I'd carry these old bones o' mine clear from here to New York. But there ain't anybody else I want to hear sing bad enough to go up to Louisville or anywhere else. And some o' these days,' says I, 'I'm goin' to hear Miss Penelope sing.'" 
            Aunt Jane laughed blithely, and it was impossible not to laugh with her. 
            "Honey," she said, in the next breath, lowering her voice and laying her finger on the rosebud piece, "honey, there's one thing I can't git over. Here's a piece o' Miss Penelope's dress, but where's Miss Penelope? Ain't it strange that a piece o' caliker'll outlast you and me? Don't it look like folks ought 'o hold on to their bodies as long as other folks holds on to a piece o' the dresses they used to wear?" 
            Questions as old as the human heart and its human grief! Here is the glove, but where is the hand it held but yesterday? Here the jewel that she wore, but where is she? "Where is the Pompadour now? This was the Pompadour's fan!"

            Strange that such things as gloves, jewels, fans, and dresses can outlast a woman's form. "Behold! I show you a mystery"—the mystery of mortality. And an eery feeling came over me as I entered into the old woman's mood and thought of the strong, vital bodies that had clothed themselves in those fabrics of purple and pink and white, and that now were dust and ashes lying in sad, neglected graves on farm and lonely roadside. There lay the quilt on our knees, and the gay scraps of calico seemed to mock us with their vivid colors. Aunt Jane's cheerful voice called me back from the tombs. 
            "Here's a piece o' one o' my dresses," she said; "brown ground with a red ring in it. Abram picked it out. And here's another one, that light yeller ground with the vine runnin' through it. I never had so many caliker dresses that I didn't want one more, for in my day folks used to think a caliker dress was good enough to wear anywhere. Abram knew my failin', and two or three times a year he'd bring me a dress when he come from town. And the dresses he'd pick out always suited me better'n the ones I picked." 
            "I ricollect I finished this quilt the summer before Mary Frances was born, and Sally Ann and Milly Amos and Maria Petty come over and give me a lift on the quiltin'. Here's Milly's work, here's Sally Ann's, and here's Maria's." 
            I looked, but my inexperienced eye could see no difference in the handiwork of the three women. Aunt Jane saw my look of incredulity. 
            "Now, child," she said, earnestly, "you think I'm foolin' you, but, la! there's jest as much difference in folks' sewin' as there is in their handwritin'. Milly made a fine stitch, but she couldn't keep on the line to save her life; Maria never could make a reg'lar stitch, some'd be long and some short, and Sally Ann's was reg'lar, but all of 'em coarse. I can see 'em now stoopin' over the quiltin' frames—Milly talkin' as hard as she sewed, Sally Ann throwin' in a word now and then, and Maria never openin' her mouth except to ask for the thread or the chalk. I ricollect they come over after dinner, and we got the quilt out o' the frames long before sundown, and the next day I begun bindin' it, and I got the premium on it that year at the Fair. 
                       
Later in the chapter, she describes each quilt she's made and tells who it is for. And she shares some of her philosophies:
 
"There's one for every child and every grandchild," she said, quietly, as she began wrapping them in the silky paper, and storing them carefully away in the cupboard, there to rest until the day when children and grandchildren would claim their own, and the treasures of the dead would come forth from the darkness to stand as heirlooms on fashionable sideboards and damask-covered tables. 
            "Did you ever think, child," she said, presently, "how much piecin' a quilt's like livin' a life? And as for sermons, why, they ain't no better sermon to me than a patchwork quilt, and the doctrines is right there a heap plainer'n they are in the catechism. Many a time I've set and listened to Parson Page preachin' about predestination and free-will, and I've said to myself, 'Well, I ain't never been through Centre College up at Danville, but if I could jest git up in the pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make it a heap plainer to folks than parson's makin' it with all his big words.' You see, you start out with jest so much caliker; you don't go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbors will give you a piece here and a piece there, and you'll have a piece left every time you cut out a dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that's like predestination. But when it comes to the cuttin' out, why, you're free to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o' pieces to two persons, and one'll make a 'nine-patch' and one'll make a 'wild-goose chase,' and there'll be two quilts made out o' the same kind o' pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut 'em out and put 'em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there's a heap more in the cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the caliker.

 . . . .

And when it comes to puttin' the pieces together, there's another time when we're free. You don't trust to luck for the caliker to put your quilt together with; you go to the store and pick it out yourself, any color you like. There's folks that always looks on the bright side and makes the best of everything, and that's like puttin' your quilt together with blue or pink or white or some other pretty color; and there's folks that never see anything but the dark side, and always lookin' for trouble, and treasurin' it up after they git it, and they're puttin' their lives together with black, jest like you would put a quilt together with some dark, ugly color. You can spoil the prettiest quilt pieces that ever was made jest by puttin' 'em together with the wrong color, and the best sort o' life is miserable if you don't look at things right and think about 'em right.
            "Then there's another thing. I've seen folks piece and piece, but when it come to puttin' the blocks together and quiltin' and linin' it, they'd give out; and that's like folks that do a little here and a little there, but their lives ain't of much use after all, any more'n a lot o' loose pieces o' patchwork. And then while you're livin' your life, it looks pretty much like a jumble o' quilt pieces before they're put together; but when you git through with it, or pretty nigh through, as I am now, you'll see the use and the purpose of everything in it. Everything'll be in its right place jest like the squares in this 'four-patch,' and one piece may be pretty and another one ugly, but it all looks right when you see it finished and joined together."

 . . . . 

I'd give away my best dress or my best bonnet or an acre o' ground to anybody that needed 'em more'n I did; but these quilts—Why, it looks like my whole life was sewed up in 'em, and I ain't goin' to part with 'em while life lasts."

One of the lines in the book that especially delighted me was when Aunt Jane said to her niece—"Did you ever think, child, how much piecin' a quilt's like livin' a life?" because I'd used the same idea in chapter 3 of my novel, Patches on the Same Quilt, when the quilt-maker Gillie Ann says:

I wrote Patches in the late 1990s and self-published it in 2001. It's now in its second edition and is available in both Kindle and paperback editions. You can read about Patches on my website.

I enjoyed Aunt Jane of Kentucky so much that I read two of Eliza Calvert Hall's other books: Clover and Bluegrass and The Land of Long Ago.

  

If you like Appalachian literature, you'll probably enjoy these.

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Eaglebait Review Again

I first reviewed Susan Coryell's novel, Eaglebait, back in 2011 when the Authors Guild re-issued the original 1998 edition. It's not often I review the same book twice on this blog, but Eaglebait has recently been revised for a new generation of readers, and thus deserves another look.

The cats discussed who would help me with this review.

Grover: "Charlotte, do you want to do this one?"

Charlotte: "I suppose I could."

Tanner: "Charlotte, you're yawning. I'll do it.
 Just let me finish my nap first."

Never mind, cats. I'll do it. My original blogpost or the book's Amazon page covers the plot, so I won't repeat it here. 

The updated coming-of-age novel is now set in 2014 or thereabouts—long before the pandemic trapped kids inside and when kids could still walk to places they wanted to go. But recent enough for kids to have cell-phones and access to technology, but before teens abandoned Facebook in droves. The update makes the story much more relevant to today's young adolecent males.

Some readers might identify with the main character, Wardy Spinks, a pudgy 14-year-old  expelled from a military school where his parents sent him two years earlier when they couldn't cope with his rebellious behavior, low grades, and poor attitude. Despite Wardy's  intelligence, at military school his grades were low, his behaviour was still rebellious, and he suffered a horrific beating by his classmates. 

Back home, Wardy's mother enrolls him in public high school where his high intelligence puts him in gifted classes. But his tormentors from middle school pick up where they left off and cyber-bully him as well as physically attack him. Wardy's grades are low, his still has family problems, etc. But some things are looking up—Wardy likes the girl who is his biology lab partner, and a new teacher takes an interest in him. Plus his Grandma Lou, a successful artist, believes in him and gives him advice. Eventually, despite several complications, Wardy's life gets better. 

Since the Eaglebait's original publication, the public's perception of science geeks has improved. The wildly successful TV series The Big Bang Theory and its spin-off Young Sheldon made viewers appreciate kids who are science obsessed and/or who are exceptional and misunderstood. Also many school systems have added STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) curriculums.

However, bullying and self-esteem problems still exist, and Eaglebait addresses those problems. Eaglebait is appropriate for boys 11 to 14 who don't fit in socially and who don't match their parents' expectations, and it's also helpful for parents—especially mothers— who cannot cope with a son who doesn't meet their expectations. If these sons and their mothers read and discuss Eaglebait together, they might better understand their family situations.

Cat family: "Mommy, have you finished your review? We're hungry."

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