欧宝娱乐

This is the first book I have read by this author, and my goodness, what an incredibly beautiful and well-written novel. From the first pages, I was pulled right into the story and the lives of the four women that it covers. There's something so poignant about a book that starts with death. How can you not be drawn in and not care about the people who will be impacted by it? The author鈥檚 style is immersive; we feel like we are living the story along with the characters.

We are immediately caught up in this world that compares and contrasts the lives of a black mother and daughter and a white mother and daughter. The families鈥� connection has existed for decades, since before the Civil War when the black family were slaves of the white family. But the web of relationships for those who were a part of that terrible institution is complex and deeply meaningful to each person in those generations beyond what that original relationship was. The younger generation has a hard time understanding how it can be so, but the author shows us with a light yet poignant touch.

This book shows us the history of the times as it is lived through the lives of these women. We get a sense of what the Gilded Age meant for both white and black people. We see the suffragist movement through those twin lenses as well. The strained race relations after the Civil War are deftly but delicately explored. I always enjoy historical fiction, where we see how what happened during a tempestuous time affects the lives of characters (especially ones like these who seem so real). This was done so well here. I actually lived just south of Oakland for 10 years, so it was interesting to see it as it may have been over a hundred years ago.

This is such a beautifully well-drawn story. I will have to go back and look at the other two books in this series, but this book certainly stands on its own and can be read without having read the other two books. If you enjoy historical women's fiction with well-drawn characters and intense intergenerational relationships, you may very well enjoy this book as much as I did.

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