#bookreview: Memory House by @BetteLeeCrosby

Memory House by Bette Lee Crosby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Annie Cross is running away from her bad memories of her ex-boyfriend, Michael, and looking for a new direction in life. Ophelia Browne is searching for someone to inherit her memories and her house. In her signature style, Crosby weaves these two very separate lives into a single story, with each chapter prefaced by the thoughts/journal of the main protagonists.

Crosby retains her charming Southern voice in Memory House and it was a pleasure to get sucked into the story. I enjoyed Memory House more than the other Crosby works I've read so far (Passing Through Perfect; Spare Change) probably because it felt a little more current and relatable to me.

It was also pretty amusing and nice to find references to the earlier books in Memory House, hidden as they are like gems to be found.

*I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

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#bookreview: Spare Change by Bette Lee Crosby

Spare Change by Bette Lee Crosby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Good Lord don't do things that way. When he sees a person's flat out of hope and feeling dead broke, He slips a bit of spare change into the bottom of their pocket. Not a lot maybe, but enough for them to get by."

Spare Change is a story of hope and a future, not just for orphaned Ethan Allen, but for newly-widowed Olivia Ann.
When Olivia's husband, Charlie Doyle, dies just 22 days after their wedding, in the middle of their honeymoon, she blames it on herself for not watching the signs - the eleventh day of their honeymoon and that opal she really should have refused.
Ethan Allen is the sole witness to the brutal murder of both his parents, but he can't tell because the murderer might kill him. Running away from home, he sets off to find the grandfather he's never met, only to find himself stuck with his grieving widow.

I quite enjoyed reading Spare Change. In her charming Southern voice, Crosby interweaves the stories of these two disparate people from very different worlds and binds them in a knot of love and family that is increasingly hard to find. She fleshes out her characters so well that you feel Susanna's pain of frequently dashed dreams, even if you don't like the way she's carrying on with that Scooter Cobb, and you understand Ethan's frequent foul-mouthed outbursts grown out of habit and fear, even if you agree with Olivia that he should stop it.

I think what broke it (a little) for me was the last two chapters. It was maybe kind of necessary to tie up the story, but it felt a little forced and out of place.

* I received a free copy of this ebook from the author in exchange for an honest review.

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#bookreview: Passing Through Perfect by Bette Lee Crosby

Passing Through Perfect by Bette Lee Crosby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Benjamin Church returned to Grinder's Corner, Alabama after the war, he dreamed of becoming a mechanic. But days turned into months, and months turned into years, and Benjamin finds himself stuck working on his father's farm to support his young family. The tragic death of his wife changes his life forever and Benjamin must find a way to get his only son, Isaac, out of the South with its deep-rooted racial prejudices to a place where he can build a future in spite of the colour of his skin.

I picked up this book free for review via ebooksforreview.com mainly because I have been on Bette Lee Crosby's mailing list for a while and I wanted to find out what she really writes about (can't remember when/how I got on the list anymore).

It seems that I have been reading an amount of historical fiction relating to the race relationships in America lately, starting with Touched with Fire and Fire and Dust. While those two are written about events in the middle of the war itself, Passing Through Perfect is an excellent "follow up" story of events that take place almost a hundred years after the abolishment of slavery in America. I think it says something about humans that, even though the law has been changed decades prior, the attitudes and traditions of the communities and the prejudices they hold had hardly changed at all.

Passing Through Perfect presents a little slice of life of that time and age, demonstrating how one man's prejudice can destroy a life and how another's open-mindedness and generosity can help rebuild it.

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