Appalachian Song

When I started reading this book I was hooked from the very first page.  The way Michelle Shocklee pulled this story together made this one of the best stories I've read this year.  Her characters are believable and if they were real people, they would be approachable and very well liked.  The setting makes it so easy for readers to insert themselves into the warp and woof of the plot and feel that they are witnessing it firsthand.  

Walker Wylie is an up and coming country singer in the early 1970s.  His father passed away and he finds out he is adopted.  He doesn't have much information to go on, but. he wants to find his birth family so he seeks out Reese, who is an adoption advocate.  What he does have is a note written by the midwife who delivered him, but she only signs it Bertie.  Reese takes Walker to Sevier County, Tennessee, to see if they can figure out who Bertie is and where she lives.  When they find a birth certificate with Alberta Mae Jenkins' signature on it and the name of the area where Miss Jenkins lived, they go up into the hills to find Bertie and her sister, Rubye.  Bertie recognizes Walker right away, but strings him along to get a feel for who he really is. After spending several days with him, Bertie tells him the whole story about his mother, his adoption, and all that she knows of his family.  It's a really sad story, but one thing leads to him finding his mother, and that is a poem his mother wrote when she was giving him away.  

Appalachian Song gives insight into the primitive life in the backwoods of Tennessee and is loosely based on the Walker sisters who lived in a cabin that became surrounded by Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Although the novel has a dual time line, it is not disjointed and it flows cohesively from beginning to end. The backstory in the dual time line gives so much depth to the novel that it would be one I read again and again.  

Five Stars, Two Thumbs Up, and a song written just for you.

Tyndale House Publishers provided the copy I read for this review.  All opinions expressed are solely my own.