The Spirit of Covington : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Warm and wonderful
Review: I wanted to devour this book as if it were a fine meal served at one of the best restaurants in town! Warm and wonderful, like Kidd's "Secret Life of Bees," and well-written and moving, like McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood" this inspiring and heart-felt book will leave you wanting more. A highly recommended and compelling tale.

Rating:
Summary: gentle Southern breeze
Review: The fire destroys the converted farmhouse that the three sixty something ladies Grace, Amelia, and Hannah, and one adult daughter Laura call home. The elderly trio lost personal items that cannot be replaced, but the threesome are troopers and makes plans for a new house with more bathrooms.

Meanwhile Amelia and Grace move in with Bob in his condominium, while Hannah and her daughter Laura moves to another family-owned home. The fire brings back bad memories for Amelia who relives the death of her young daughter and the accident that killed her husband and left her scarred. The building begins, but though hopes for the future are raised, other events shake the tight friendships. Laura plans to marry but also leans towards an abortion that upsets her mother. Amelia returns to photography. Bob asks Grace to marry him. Who will move into the new home when its finished becomes questionable.

The fourth Covington tale is gentle Southern breeze of a story that requires a mint julep, a porch, and a warm fall day. The story line brings out the personalities of the prime four females and several support players, but clearly lacks any extensive action. Fans of a cozy character study will want to visit Covington for this novel and its previous three books.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: They Are Back!
Review: They?re back! The Covington Ladies (Hannah, Grace, and Amelia) and their white farmhouse captured my heart in previous novels, so I am overjoyed by their return. When I saw Joan Medlicott?s newest release, The Spirit of Covington, I could hardly wait to actually get the book in my hands and ?catch up? with the goings on in the lives of these special ladies.

In my eagerness I wanted to devour the book, but at the same time I wanted to savor every word because Joan Medlicott is a masterful storyteller and should have begun her writing career decades ago. She can take the simplest phrase and write it with exquisite beauty. That ability is one of the many things that make her books so appealing and such a joy to read. You only have to read a few sentences in the first two paragraphs of The Spirit of Covington to understand that. As this story opens, a spark??flared to life among dry leaves and snaked toward the woods?. Joan Medlicott gave animation to that fire, causing me to see it with perfect clarity when she wrote, ?By two A.M., a necklace of gold edged the outer fringe of trees, and by three A.M. it had crawled into the woods.? That sentence made me shiver because it foreshadowed the devastation that was to follow.

As the fire moved closer to the beloved farmhouse, Amelia?s heartbreaking, wide-eyed fear of its all-consuming temperament was palpable. She only had to touch her scars to remember another fire many years ago and the painful burns it had inflicted on her. Of course she, Grace, and Hannah fled helter-skelter from their white farmhouse with only the few things they could carry in trash bags that Hannah had hastily snatched for each of them. Strong, steady Hannah was the only one who was able to set aside her shock and hastily grab their important papers including the deed to the farmhouse.

In the days and weeks that followed the fire, our ladies were separated for the first time since they had bravely joined forces and left the Pennsylvania nursing home together years earlier. As each year passed, they had learned to depend on each other?s special strengths and had carved out a life for themselves in their new community. Now, in their isolation, they were depriving themselves of the very essence of what had always sustained each of them. During the many unpredictable changes in their lives, I began to fear that they would be unable to find their way back to their former loving and supportive relationships. I also feared that rebuilding their farmhouse would be too difficult for them, but unexpected help came from many people. Some were people in the community whom they had befriended through the years, but many were complete strangers. These strangers had read about the fire in the paper, and offers of help, not to mention money, began to flood in. Such kindness overwhelmed our ladies.

Change and the challenges it often brings filled the pages of this book. Gentle, anxious Amelia confronted the tortures of depression, and Grace found herself having to care for her boyfriend, Bob, following his heart attack. Caring for him meant moving in with him; a situation that caused her even greater conflict. Of course this left Amelia, who was always so apprehensive, and our strong and steady Hannah at cross-purposes with each other. Without Grace to stand between them and act as a mooring for their vastly different dispositions, they struggled against each other. Hannah ended the struggle by moving in with her friend, George Maxwell, who had lived across the street from their farmhouse on Cove Road. She already had a special friendship with this neighbor, and now that friendship deepened. He wanted to take care of Hannah, not only during this time of rebuilding, but also later in life. He spoke of a marriage of convenience because he wanted to grant Hannah the legacy of Bella?s Park; the special park they had worked side-by-side to build after his wife?s death. If they were married, there would be no inheritance taxes for Hannah to pay on the property.

As these three ladies toil with the mentally fatiguing process of rebuilding and finding their way back to each other, the reader is enticed deeper into their lives. Then in the midst of all this, Hannah?s daughter, Laura, finds out that she is pregnant.

***** Words cannot say how much I loved this book. As the ladies found their way back to each other, I realized again the sustaining power of friendships and that love must be cherished. Each book in this series is unique and notable, and these three ladies seem as real as cherished friends. The Covington books tell about life in the truest sense of the word, and are written with the emotional identification and empathy that only Joan Medlicott can provide. I can hardly wait for the next one. *****

Reviewed by Ruth Wilson.