Title: REVIVING THE HAWTHORN SISTERS
Author: Emily Carpenter
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Read: October 2020
Expected publication: out now
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟1/2
Book Description:
Dove Jarrod was a renowned
evangelist and faith healer. Only her granddaughter, Eve Candler, knows that
Dove was a con artist. In the eight years since Dove’s death, Eve has
maintained Dove’s charitable foundation—and her lies. But just as a documentary
team wraps up a shoot about the miracle worker, Eve is assaulted by a vengeful
stranger intent on exposing what could be Dove’s darkest secret: murder…
Tuscaloosa, 1934: a wily young orphan escapes the psychiatric hospital where
she was born. When she joins the itinerant inspirational duo the Hawthorn
Sisters, the road ahead is one of stirring new possibilities. And with an
obsessive predator on her trail, one of untold dangers. For a young girl to
survive, desperate choices must be made.
Now, to protect her family, Eve will join forces with the investigative
filmmaker and one of Dove’s friends, risking everything to unravel the truth
behind the accusations against her grandmother. But will the truth set her free
or set her world on fire?
What attracted me to this book:
Emily Carpenter’s book THE WEIGHT OF
LIES made it onto my all-time-favourite list with its Gothic undertones and its
book-within-a-book concept, so since then I have devoured everything she has
written – and continue to really enjoy her writing.
My musings:
REVIVING THE HAWTHORN SISTERS was a very different
style from Carpenter’s mysteries, but she still managed to infuse the story
with the Southern elements that hallmark all her books. I always enjoy
mysteries that centre around family secrets, so I was very excited to join Eve
on her quest to find out about her grandmother Dove’s life before she became
the famous evangelist she was later known for. America in the 1930’s holds a
certain mystery that few eras can match, and I eagerly immersed myself in the
atmosphere of life in the Great Depression.
I admit that I was much more
invested in Dove’s life than in Eve’s, and would happily have had more chapters
dedicated to her. Some elements of Eve were hard to comprehend and bond with,
even though she grew on me a bit as the book progressed. I did enjoy the slight
air of the supernatural, an element of the mystery that hung there,
untouchable, always putting some doubt in my mind.
Summary:
If you enjoy mysteries with a Gothic element, or
those involving family secrets (with a family heirloom tying it all together),
then REVIVING THE HAWTHORN SISTERS should definitely be on your list. Told from
two separate POVs and spanning two timelines, the 1930s and today, the book
will also appeal to lovers of historical fiction who are intrigued by stories
that our older generation takes to the grave with them. I love all of those
elements, and really enjoyed my reading journey – I can’t wait to see what
Emily Carpenter comes up with next!
Thank
you to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the free electronic copy of this novel and
for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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