Authors: Donna VanLiere
ISBN-13: 9780641870569, ISBN-10: 0641870566
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date Published: October 2006
Edition: Bargain
Donna VanLiere is an actress and speaker, and the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Christmas Shoes, The Christmas Blessing, and The Christmas Hope. She lives with her husband and their two daughters in Franklin, Tennessee.
From the author of the blockbuster Christmas Hope series comes a breakout novel of faith, family and hope
The story of a black family's move to a small all-white Tennessee town in 1947 inspires inspirational novelist VanLiere (Christmas Hope; Christmas Shoes; etc.) to expand her fictional range while trying to expand her audience. Narrator Jane Gable recalls two critical life events on the same spring day when she was nine years old: the funeral of her alcoholic father and the arrival of a black family of sharecroppers, the first blacks Jane has ever seen in Morgan Hill. Both events converge to make life harder for the impoverished Gables; Jane's mother, Fran, is pregnant, and the black Turner family, hired to work on a tobacco farm, is slighted, harassed and threatened. When the Turners' house burns down, Milo, the only survivor, is taken in by the Gables. VanLiere uses humor, memories of growing up Southern and touching moments of family unity to enrich her story of overcoming racism and poverty. Her retreat into familiar territory (another charming Christmas pageant, another holiday full of joy and sentiment) will satisfy fans of her earlier work. Author tour. (Oct 17) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.