Bloodroot

Rating:
Summary: China must unravel the family secrets
Review: In this book China Bayles has to deal with her family that she disowned many years before. She deals not only with the living family, but she also has to unravel some family secrets and possibly deal with their ghosts.

Her mother Leatha calls and asks her to come to come to Jordan's Crossing, the old family plantation in Mississippi. She will only tell her that Aunt Tullie might end up in jail if she doesn't come to help. China is no longer a practicing lawyer, but she gets Ruby to look after her herbal store Thyme and Seasons. She says goodbye to her husband McQuaid and his son Brian. Then takes off for Jordan's Crossing.

When she arrives, she finds that not only has Aunt Tullie aged in the years since China has seen here, but she is also not well. Sometimes she is fairly lucid, but not always.

Her mother tells her that Wiley showed up with what he claimed to be a deed to a portion of their land. No one seemed to be aware of this and Aunt Tullie got quite upset. Wiley hasn't been seen since. There are extenuating circumstances and then the Deputy gets involved in the search for Wiley.

China renews an old friendship with Darlene, who is now the cook at Jordan's Crossing. They start looking into things and find that there is more going on than just a deed. China starts reading Great-Grandmother Pearl's diary hoping to unlock some of the secrets.

China finds herself in many interesting situations and dealing with many feelings regarding her family and heritage. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more China Bayles mysteries. This book was very well written and the plot was masterfully crafted.

I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: China must unravel the family secrets
Review: In this book China Bayles has to deal with her family that she disowned many years before. She deals not only with the living family, but she also has to unravel some family secrets and possibly deal with their ghosts.

Her mother Leatha calls and asks her to come to come to Jordan's Crossing, the old family plantation in Mississippi. She will only tell her that Aunt Tullie might end up in jail if she doesn't come to help. China is no longer a practicing lawyer, but she gets Ruby to look after her herbal store Thyme and Seasons. She says goodbye to her husband McQuaid and his son Brian. Then takes off for Jordan's Crossing.

When she arrives, she finds that not only has Aunt Tullie aged in the years since China has seen here, but she is also not well. Sometimes she is fairly lucid, but not always.

Her mother tells her that Wiley showed up with what he claimed to be a deed to a portion of their land. No one seemed to be aware of this and Aunt Tullie got quite upset. Wiley hasn't been seen since. There are extenuating circumstances and then the Deputy gets involved in the search for Wiley.

China renews an old friendship with Darlene, who is now the cook at Jordan's Crossing. They start looking into things and find that there is more going on than just a deed. China starts reading Great-Grandmother Pearl's diary hoping to unlock some of the secrets.

China finds herself in many interesting situations and dealing with many feelings regarding her family and heritage. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more China Bayles mysteries. This book was very well written and the plot was masterfully crafted.

I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed
Review: Like Murphy's Law, Bloodroot represents a departure from the author's usual place and, to some extent, time. Albert's popular heroine, China Bayles, left her criminal law career to open an herb shop in a small Texas town. Here China leaves her home and her new husband to answer a plea from her mother, Leatha, at the family plantation in Mississippi.

China finds her great-aunt has finally become too ill to run the business. A man has produced a deed claiming ownership to the family property. When he is found dead, China must look in the past for answers, to protect her family and her long-ago friends.

What seemed to be a long-ago dream turns out to hold the key to the interlocking mysteries of family, property and murder. Albert evokes the steamy summers and equally steamy secrets of life in a family that takes its dysfunctional qualities from the post-Civil War southern culture.

The narrative moves swiftly, except for the many details about China's family tree that are needed to understand clues, red herrings and an ultimately satisfying ending. China's detective work, made easier by friendships formed in childhood, solves the crime. However, the family's secrets are unraveled by documents that literally turn up when China needs them most.

The focus on history does take away the uniqueness of China's character, which blossoms in her home setting. At times I thought I was reading about Shankman's heroine, Samantha. And the uniquely southern blend of supernatural, dreams and real life reminded me of McCrumb's folksong series.

Then again, people often lose part of themselves when they return home for a visit. Although Bloodroot offers a pleasant variation in the series, I suspect readers, like China, would like to get back to her herb shop in Texas.

Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed
Review: Like Murphy's Law, Bloodroot represents a departure from the author's usual place and, to some extent, time. Albert's popular heroine, China Bayles, left her criminal law career to open an herb shop in a small Texas town. Here China leaves her home and her new husband to answer a plea from her mother, Leatha, at the family plantation in Mississippi.

China finds her great-aunt has finally become too ill to run the business. A man has produced a deed claiming ownership to the family property. When he is found dead, China must look in the past for answers, to protect her family and her long-ago friends.

What seemed to be a long-ago dream turns out to hold the key to the interlocking mysteries of family, property and murder. Albert evokes the steamy summers and equally steamy secrets of life in a family that takes its dysfunctional qualities from the post-Civil War southern culture.

The narrative moves swiftly, except for the many details about China's family tree that are needed to understand clues, red herrings and an ultimately satisfying ending. China's detective work, made easier by friendships formed in childhood, solves the crime. However, the family's secrets are unraveled by documents that literally turn up when China needs them most.

The focus on history does take away the uniqueness of China's character, which blossoms in her home setting. At times I thought I was reading about Shankman's heroine, Samantha. And the uniquely southern blend of supernatural, dreams and real life reminded me of McCrumb's folksong series.

Then again, people often lose part of themselves when they return home for a visit. Although Bloodroot offers a pleasant variation in the series, I suspect readers, like China, would like to get back to her herb shop in Texas.

Rating:
Summary: A solid addition to an excellent series
Review: Sometimes people panic when an author departs from the setting of an established series. In some cases it does affect the series negatively. This is NOT the case, however, in the latest China Bayles mystery. China is a strong enough character to hold her own when the secondary characters are not present. I found this book to be fascinating. The subplots were interesting and the characters were well-defined and credible. The author presented a family tree at the beginning, so it was not confusing keeping the family members straight. It was good for China to get away from Pecan Springs and interact with her mother more. This book could be read and enjoyed by those who have never read any others in the series. It's an excellent story.

Rating:
Summary: This may be the best of the series yet.
Review: Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles series has had its high points, as well as low points where several books in a row seemed to have the same plot, and where the murderer always seemed to be that one character who didn't have any real reason to be in the book *unless* s/he was the culprit. With _Bloodroot_, Albert rises above a few blah-ish books midseries, and proves she is a unique talent in the mystery field.

China is summoned by her mother to the family's old plantation, where her ailing Aunt Tullie is in trouble. See, Aunt Tullie was the last to see an old childhood playmate of China's, who claimed to have a deed to the plantation and now is missing. She had motive, means, and opportunity. And unless China can figure out what's going on, her ailing aunt may go to jail.

Haunted by a recurring dream from her childhood, and assisted by the ghost of a suicidal ancestress, China uncovers dark secrets in her family's past, from slavery and ill-treatment of Native Americans to hereditary diseases, illegitimate pregnancies, and murder. Albert paints an enthralling picture of her setting, showing both its beauty and its decadence. And I love these touches of "magical realism" she uses from time to time. As an added bonus, I had no clue whodunit until very close to the end!

Rating:
Summary: Roots rooted in mystery and blood lines
Review: The importance of your ancestry is never more solidly touted than when it comes to discovering what genetic ailments one might have passed on to his or her progeny. And thus, Aunt Tullie's ailment, the curse of Huntington's chorea, comes head on to both China Bayles and her estranged mother. And part of the poignancy of this mystery is China's forced link to her mother and her Mississippi heritage, something China has set aside in her adult life.

The strong female role that epitomizes China Bayles life in each of the novels Albert has written of her is now exposed at its roots, and we see a strong and successful female who precedes China and her mother in Aunt Tullie. But with each discovery of what really ails her aunt, China and her mother both have to face the likelihood that they will both face a similar fate, fighting a disease for which there is no known cure, a decline to death that brings on a tortuous end. The reader can't help but hope that part of the mystery will be solved and that there will be some reason why China will not inherit this fate.

With China displaced from her usual Texas base, she is not the business woman we usually encounter. Instead, she is the guest of her past and must face the close and haunting memories of her childhood, which come to her in dreams of vignettes played out in the moonlit grounds of her ancestor's home.

This is a good ol' Southern set mystery, not as violent as a James Lee Burke tale but nicely eerie. And the departure from the Texas setting is not disconcerting at all. "Bloodroot" just enriches the reader's understanding of China, who will appear in several more volumes of Albert's imaginings. Fun reading, suspenseful and poignant with good food in all the right places.

Rating:
Summary: Roots rooted in mystery and blood lines
Review: The importance of your ancestry is never more solidly touted than when it comes to discovering what genetic ailments one might have passed on to his or her progeny. And thus, Aunt Tullie's ailment, the curse of Huntington's chorea, comes head on to both China Bayles and her estranged mother. And part of the poignancy of this mystery is China's forced link to her mother and her Mississippi heritage, something China has set aside in her adult life.

The strong female role that epitomizes China Bayles life in each of the novels Albert has written of her is now exposed at its roots, and we see a strong and successful female who precedes China and her mother in Aunt Tullie. But with each discovery of what really ails her aunt, China and her mother both have to face the likelihood that they will both face a similar fate, fighting a disease for which there is no known cure, a decline to death that brings on a tortuous end. The reader can't help but hope that part of the mystery will be solved and that there will be some reason why China will not inherit this fate.

With China displaced from her usual Texas base, she is not the business woman we usually encounter. Instead, she is the guest of her past and must face the close and haunting memories of her childhood, which come to her in dreams of vignettes played out in the moonlit grounds of her ancestor's home.

This is a good ol' Southern set mystery, not as violent as a James Lee Burke tale but nicely eerie. And the departure from the Texas setting is not disconcerting at all. "Bloodroot" just enriches the reader's understanding of China, who will appear in several more volumes of Albert's imaginings. Fun reading, suspenseful and poignant with good food in all the right places.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the Best Thus Far?
Review: This is a departure for the series as China Bayles leaves Pecan Springs to go to her ancestral home, Jordan's Crossing in Mississippi, to help her mother with a problematic great-aunt. Most episodes have occurred in & around Pecan Springs. Great Aunt Tullie, about 85 years old, has Huntington's disease, a degenerative & inherited disease, that causes loss of control of muscles, speech, and emotions. There are other problems that have arisen in the years that China has been away - including a claim against the land, a man disappearing, and a mysterious old woman who seems to know more than anyone else about the family's history. I really enjoyed this entry into the series. It showed more depth into the development of characters and it was interesting to see the interaction between China and her semi-estranged mother, Leatha. Definitely worth reading and definitely worth looking forward to the next book.

Rating:
Summary: Certainly Missed the Quirky Ruby!
Review: This is certainly a different book in this series. For one thing there is no Ruby Wilcox, and I for one really missed her, as well as other eccentric citizens of Pecan Springs. It was interesting to look back at China's early life, and the mysitical theme was actually quite well done. This wasn't a mystery though in the true sense of the word. It's more a search for the past in China's mother's family. I still enjoyed the book, but I do want to get back to the main storyline in the next book in the series. We also see China getting softer and more feminine in each book. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I hope she doesn't get too soft since her toughness is part of the appeal of this series.