(Disclaimer: this was sent to me by an agent.)
I loved this book. It's long, but don't let that intimidate you- it's worth it.
It's 1941, and Raine Foster is up shit creek without a paddle. Her family's mostly gone and dead broke, and her grandmother has lost her mind and is dying. And she's just received an offer that she literally CAN'T refuse- a marriage proposal from the richest, meanest, drunkest man in town. If she said no, he'd probably have her killed. So Raine accepts- then starts planning her escape (and to fake her own death) after her grandmother dies. This plan hits a bit of a snag when two orphaned distant cousins of hers, Ben and Charlotte, show up on her doorstep. Raine ends up planning fake deaths for three, and manages to get away.
While on the way out of there, which is very dangerous, they meet up with a kind fellow named Touhy, who ends up "adopting" them, and after Raine is brutalized by a hobo, protects them all the way to their new town of Riverview. The Foster family (plus Touhy, who they claim is a cousin) make friends with Eula and Dewey O. Martin, who work for the richest family in town, the Walters, and the O. Martins find them jobs working on the nearby orchard farm of Chen Yao Gao (known as "China Joe" until the Fosters start using his real name). Touhy plans on leaving, but Chen refuses to keep the rest of the family on unless there's a man working for him.
The Walters family has fallen on emotional hard times. The parents died ages ago, and their son Arlen has become, well...a racist, drunk, controlling asshole. As for his sister Mayleen, she's a sweetheart of a girl with spunk and spirit...and she's also got a bad heart and lungs and will probably die the next time she gets a bad case of pneumonia. Mayleen is determined to "kick up her heels" before she dies, and she also wants a boyfriend- namely, Chen (who loves her back). Even if they can't get married, she still wants to see him, and she figures out that starting a doll-making business with Raine is a good way to do it. The O. Martins, who have vowed to stay employed by Arlen until after Mayleen dies, are willing to help her do whatever she wants. Adding to the complications, the local doctor has taken up alcoholism after the death of his wife and son, and Arlen's got a grudge against him (as well as anyone else that has contact with Mayleen, really).
Then World War II starts, Touhy enlists, racial tensions mount, and Raine can't be left alone with a single man on the farm, so...she ends up in another forced engagement, and a marriage that she has to go through. And yet, it works. She knows that Chen and Mayleen love each other and does her best to help facilitate her friends' secret relationship.
I could go on from here, but I'll let you read the rest. It's a good story that I kept eagerly reading whenever I could (even though I must admit, holding a 600+ page paperback in your hand while walking down the street is a bit heavy). While it covers "small" dramas, in a sense, it's fascinating. I enjoyed the various relationships and feelings people had for each other. It's very heartwarming. I especially enjoyed the various romances- I don't think I've ever seen a book that emphasized friendship-as-romantic-relationship before, and that's a healthy thing to see.
I only had a few plot quibbles:
(a) I had a horrible time telling the two pastors apart. One is white and one is black, but they're both friends. While I really appreciated that aspect of the story, and understood that they were supposed to kind of be read as "twins" in a sense, I kept forgetting which one was which because they sounded so alike. Adding in some kind of verbal ticks or quirks or favorite phrases for one or both of them might have helped for me to tell them apart, seeing as I couldn't exactly go on The Big Difference of Skin Color while reading.
(b) I can't go into this one without spoiling the end, so this comment will go below the spoiler cut.
(c) I think what happened on the last page of the book could have used some more foreshadowing (again, see below spoiler cut).
Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Four and a half stars from me.
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(b) I find it just as unbelievable as the characters do that Arlen left all of his money to the people he hated the most in the world (not to mention, TRIED TO KILL in at least one case). I can understand the author wanting to wrap up with a happy ending and by giving them the money, and who else would he leave it to, indeed, but...come on.
It would have been more plausible to me to have had Arlen leave all of his money to Mayleen and then there being some kind of clause that passed the money on to whoever Mayleen left money to in her will, rather than specifically saying that Arlen would leave the people he considered to be his enemies his fortune, by name.
I do wonder if Chen was mentioned by name in the will (the book doesn't say), seeing as Arlen SHOT HIM and all. It really doesn't seem likely that Arlen would have gone out, plugged Chen, then gone out and changed his will to be so specific as to leave him out.
I dunno, that just raises a red flag of "What the heck?!" with me.
(c) I think it would have been better to hint at Touhy's feelings for Raine a bit more often, given how the book resolves. You figure out he finds her attractive when they first meet and start hanging out, but you never see or hear of him having feelings for her past the point where they end up on the farm, so it seems a little out of the blue that suddenly he wants to marry her upon his return. If the author could hint at the "other Foster" dying, and handle the Chen/Mayleen relationship as well as she does, I don't see why she couldn't have him mention Raine by herself a bit more often and tenderly in his thoughts once in awhile.
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