I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book because of the credibility of the story that brims with strong women, friendships, faith, wit, humor, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Annie, a doctoral student who is collecting stories of Appalachia to record the history of the region, makes friends with two elderly ladies, Ida and Erma, who have been lifelong friends. Their stories go all the way back to the beginning of the twentieth century, to the coal-mine disasters, to West Virginia, Kanawha County and Thurmond. Annie first rooms with her ninety-year-old retired professor Ida, who asks her to deliver a dog named Hank to its owner. Through that experience, Annie gets to know Erma, a veterinary doctor, and through her friends she finds out how Erma’s father was killed during the Red Ash Mine explosion, leaving the family homeless, and how her mother took her to Mrs. Jones, a real character of the time, and how Erma met Ida.

The premise of the book centers around the friendship of women, but especially that of Ida and Erma, who as children made pinky-vows and stayed loyal throughout their lives, with Erma letting go of a possible lover who was nasty to Ida. These two friends’ story continues into the 1980s.

What is amazing is that every character in the story is multi-dimensional, fully developed, and very believable. What is also amazing was the real existence of Mother Jones (Mrs. Mary Harris Jones) who in that time and place, crusaded against child labor and the conditions of the mines. In her farm, she also housed and took care of animals and people, mostly other women who were negatively affected by the hardships of the coal-mine life.

Then, what I admired is the research that must have gone into putting this book together and the expertise of Deanna Edens, a writer who never stoops to cliché knowledge. Mrs.Jones, Red Ash Mine explosions, and the flavor of the region with its changes through the decades are real and shows how much the writer respected every aspect of her story.

When any book in a series ends unfinished, I usually vow to never read from that author again. This book, however, does feel finished even though it is the first book in the series. This is because its shortness serves as a gateway and a frame to the other books, which I assume will be filled in with more local and cultural stories, and for that reason, I am not disappointed at all, and I certainly would love to read the following books.

enjoying the folksy stories and noticing the importance of research and good characterization in writing a novel.

Mother Jones.

read the other books in the series, although I think this one would be a much better book if the author somehow put together every book in one volume with the stories in it in a reasonable succession.

is Deanna Edens.

for me, it was fun to read and I appreciated the regional color and history, and the wonderful characters. Plus, it is a short enough book that didn't take too much time to read.

There is a section at the end of the book that gives information on Mother Jones and the region with links to sites for information. I noted them but didn't look at them yet. They must be full of information of the region.

Once, after hearing all the other cliché portrayals of the land and its people, we passed through West Virginia on a driving vacation, staying a couple of nights somewhere, which wasn't enough to feel the sense of the place because its history (or backstory) was lacking.

This book has succeeded to let me feel the region and its people.

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Created May 07, 2019 at 6:49pm • Submit your own review...