Almost Innocent: A Novel (Voices of the South)

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Summary: Almost Innocent
Review: Almost Innocent is a rare find. I read this book several times and found something different to love every time. The second novel, Slow Poison is also another classic. Sheila Bosworth is an incredible storyteller. Her characters leap off the pages and become a part of your existance. Her writing flows as smoothly and certainly as a river. This would make a wonderful movie. Please Ms. Bosworth, more!

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Summary: Wonderfully Written Family Drama
Review: Sheila Bosworth has written a novel that is deserving of all the praise it has gotten from the other reviewers on this site. The characters are unforgettable and the story unfolds at such a perfect pace. We are introduced and then guided through this intimate family history by Clay-Lee the daughter who shares with the reader the perspective of a child as she describe events and people that are encountered by her parents and their immediate circle. The childhood recollections are structured in such a clever way that the reader anticipates and percieves motivations that are not clearly evident to the young Clay-Lee as narrator. Her "innocence" doesn't prevent us from seeing something more sinsister implicit in the scenes she witnesses.

In addition to the wonderful characters and plot the novel has the added quality of just dripping with New Orleans flavor. If you love the city and are familiar with the settings described the novel provides that added dimension of placing you right there.

After finishing this I immediately ordered Bosworth's other novel Slow Poison. She is a fabulous writer.

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Summary: "He who is penitent is almost innocent."
Review: With this quote from Seneca, author Sheila Bosworth capsulizes the theme of innocence lost and nearly restored in "Almost Innocent," her first novel. Set in New Orleans and evocative of the sights and sounds that any native will recognize, Bosworth's novel traces the process by which the main character, Clay-Lee, attempts to reconstruct her mother's life through stories and memory. In the process of facing herself through her mother's life, Clay-Lee finds redemption for her perceived guilt in her mother's death. Her penitence restores her innocence and allows her to shape her own life and move on. This novel was both entertaining and thought-provoking. I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who has ever borne the guilt of a burdensome secret--or who simply wants a taste of New Orleans.