MOURNING DOVE by Claire Fullerton @cfullerton3

4.5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: I downloaded it on Kindle Unlimited after reading this review on Rosie Amber's blog and this review on Between The Lines.

Genre: Family Saga (set in Memphis).

Not my usual genre these days, but I do find the culture of the Deep South interesting, and the reviews assured me that it would be worth a read.  It certainly was; it's a fine book.  

The book starts in the late 1960s-ish, and does not have a rounded plot with a beginning, middle and end, but is more just the tale of a family's lives.  It is a first person narrative, told by Millie, who is a child at the start of the book.  Millie's mother is Posey Crossan, née Hawthorne, the archetypal Southern belle from a monied family, with all the accompanying conservative, old-style social expectations, standards and prejudices deeply ingrained within her psyche.  She is the ultimate survivor, and is beautifully drawn:

She had the kind of looks that waited in arrested development during her youth, then pounced like a cat around the time she turned forty.

She was a woman who thought ahead, who'd redirected a nurse from inflicting an innoculation shot on my infant left shoulder to the area tucked beneath my left shoulder blade so I'd look good in a strapless evening gown.

... socialising in her fabulous full-length beaver coat, deeply engaged in gossiping, which was the only contact sport that ever truly held her attention

The other main character is Millie's brilliant, charismatic brother Finley, who excels at school but chucks up any sort of 'expected' career in favour of his band; this brings with it the usual associated difficulties, as artistic clashes occur, and later the insanity of relgious cults is added to the mix.  Throughout, I could feel the clash of the old guard with the ideas and aspirations of the younger generation.

In many ways, although we hear about her circumstances too, Millie is the narrator of the lives of Posey and Finley and the life and times of those around them, standing back, as if her own tale is but a minor plot thread.  It's so well-written, and the characterisation is marvellous.

It works best if you read it in a Deep South accent, I found... and if complex family sagas are your thing, I am sure you will adore this book.

 

SHATTERED LIES by S J Francis

3 out of 5 stars

Family Drama

On Amazon UK HERE
On Amazon US HERE

Reviewed by me as part of Rosie Amber's Review Team 

This is a complex, emotional family drama set in America's Deep South, in the 'Magnolia State', Mississippi.  I believe this is the author's debut novel, and 10% of royalties go the the Polycystic Kidney Foundation.

Kate Thayer is a thirty year old widow who runs a horse farm that belongs to the family, and lives in the family mansion along with her grandmother, Katherine.  Early on in the book she begins to unravel the lies she has been told all her life, about her parents and grandparents, and the servants who live and work on the estate.

I am interested in American social history and the stark differences between the states in this vast continent, and do like a bit of family intrigue.  I cannot say much, as it would give the plot away, but I did find the age-old prejudices that still exist between races in this part of the world, interesting to read about.

At first I couldn't connect with the characters at all, but they began to emerge from one dimension as the novel progressed.  I found it a bit heavy going, with little to suggest a life for any of the characters outside the drama; if it wasn't for people using their cell phones and a few references to Obama, the story could have been set at any time over the past forty or so years.  The other downside, for me, was the curious punctuation; for some reason, the author has used two small en dashes (--) in place of semicolons, brackets, em dashes, ellipses, and some commas.  There is a certain amount of 'telling not showing', ie, the omniscient narrator stating what a character's personality is like rather than letting the reader assess it for him or herself, via dialogue, expression and action.

The plot is an unusual and unexpected one; it made me think of those 1980s American blockbuster mini-series.  That isn't a complaint—I loved them!  It's certainly thought-provoking, and provided a good insight into the North-South divide that, clearly, still exists.