Book Review-Blackberry Winter

Title: Blackberry Winter

Author: Sarah Jio

     This book is two stories in one.  The chapters go back and forth between the story of Vera Ray, 1933 and Claire Aldridge, 2010.  These two women have a lot more in common than anyone thinks.  The novel begins in May 1933 when there was an irregular blizzard that caused complete panic in the city of Seattle.  It then switches to present day where there is a repeat storm. On the day of the storm Vera is forced to leave her 3 year old son at home alone while she works.  She returns to find him missing.  In the present day Claire has awoken to the strange storm and assigned to cover it for the newspaper she reports for.  As Claire begins to dig for things to report on this story she uncovers many different things that help her realize how similar and closely related she and Vera truly are. 

 This book was an awesome story.  I loved finding the ways that the two women were connected. The author did an awesome job of keeping me wanting to find out what happened.  I could easily relate to the two women and sympathize for them.  Throughout the book she did an unbelievable job of describing the feelings, emotions, and scenes of the stories.  I could honestly feel as if I was right along with Vera searching for little Daniel or with Claire while discovering new details to add into the story.

 As a parent myself I had a hard time when Vera had to leave her 3 year old home alone but I understand that 1933 was a different time and you had to do what you could to make money.  I think that the relationships and stories in the novel were at times hard to find truthful and realistic but I still seemed to get lost in them. From the time I picked this book up until the time I finished it I could not get the story out of my mind. 

I would definitely recommend this book and others by this author.  I will be venturing to read March of the Violets by Sarah Jio.

Stay tuned for the next book review, Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore.