Wedding Ring (Mira)

Rating:
Summary: wonderfully insightful family drama
Review: Thirty-seven years old Tessa MacRae and her sixty-year-old mom Nancy Whitlock are worried about the latter's octogenarian mother Helen, who has neglected her Tom Brooks, Virginia house. The home is dangerously cluttered with junk as Nancy realizes she has not been allowed inside since her five-year-old granddaughter was killed by a drunk driver three years ago, the pivotal moment that left three surviving generations shattered.

Tessa's husband Mack attends Compassionate Friends to help him cope with his grief. Tessa is an active member of MADD, but has done nothing to truly deal with her loss of their daughter. Mack feels cut off from his wife who he loves dearly, but needs love and is considering an affair.

Nancy's husband Billy visits, but she worries that though they have been married for decades he will see her farm roots and leave her. Nancy loves Billy, but feels a need to defend her birth home and her mom before going upstairs to cry. Billy leaves without saying goodbye.

As the three women clean out the house over the summer and allow a pregnant teen to join them, will they find solace in their memories or continue the spin into the abyss?

The entire cast is as powerful as they come as every key member (even Helen's long deceased husband) is incredibly developed. The relationships between the characters are fantastic because even the negativity seems genuine. The use of quilting enables the past to surface interwoven with the current woes. Though the amount of angst (each one of the three lead females deals with enough problems to cover a book by herself) overwhelms, Emilie Richards paints a wonderfully insightful family drama.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: The Shenandoah Album trilogy is off to a great start!
Review: WEDDING RING by Emilie Richards is a story that is in essence a tribute to the strength of women, the importance of family and the desire to keep family traditions. The title refers to the name of one of the many quilts that have been created by Helen Henry, the matriarch of a family that is slowly drifting apart due to generation gaps and misunderstandings among the three women.

But the main reason for the family problems could be attributed to the untimely death of the youngest member of the family, a death that had occurred three years earlier. Tessa MacCrae lost her only child Kayley to a drunk driver three years ago. Kayley was only five. Not only has the death put a strain on her marriage, it has also forced Tessa to shut down her emotions completely, not allowing anyone to see that she is hurt by the death of her daughter. She tries her best to erase any evidence that her daughter had existed, to the dismay of everyone around her.

As the novel opens, Tessa and her mother Nancy are trying to gain entry into Helen's home in Toms Brook, Virginia, in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. And it is not a pretty sight. It is hot and humid outside, and Helen is doing her best to deter her daughter and granddaughter from coming in the house. She throws things out her window, such as pieces of clothing, in the hopes that she can scare her family away. Helen fears they are coming to take her away, and she refuses to leave her family home.

What Tessa finds, and Nancy has already feared, is that Helen is now living the life of a pack rat, and it is a classic case. There is no room in the house for anyone to walk, let alone live. It is literally a fire hazard. Rodents and insects live with Helen. Stacks of newspapers and boxes and all sorts of other things fill each room from floor to ceiling, and it's now up to Nancy and Tessa to clean the place up and determine whether Helen can live on her own. Nancy and Tessa's mission is to spend the summer months with Helen, while helping to clean up the house and decide at the end of the summer whether to let Helen stay on her own or move her to a home.

While the three women are living together and getting the house slowly back into shape, Tessa finds quilts that were stored away. She never had an interest in the quilts, but Nancy and Helen know that there is a story behind each one. As they look at each quilt, the stories of their past come rushing out. Helen bares her soul (an act that this crotchety old woman has never done before) and tells the other two women the story of her childhood, the poverty that was her life, and the love of her life that was her husband, Fate Henry. In turn, Nancy talks about her childhood, her hatred of being poor and wishing she could be swept away by a wealthy gentleman, which indeed did happen, by her husband Billy. Her story, like her mother's, was not a fairy tale but one of struggle and hardship. Through these stories, each woman gains an understanding of her own mother, bringing the three of them closer together.

While Tessa learns the story of her mother and grandmother, she herself must deal with her own tragedy and repair the marriage that she is about to lose. When her husband Mack informs her that the man who killed their daughter, Robert Owens, has been let out of jail early for good behavior, Tessa goes into a rage and decides to take the law into her own hands. This behavior helps to drive the two even further apart, as their marriage is already on shaky ground. Mack's involvement with a support group has introduced to him a younger woman who he has discovered feelings for, and Tessa finds herself pushing away from Mack, no matter how much he begs her to stay.

WEDDING RING is the first of a trilogy of books based on life in the poverty-stricken Shenandoah Valley. The Shenandoah Album trilogy is off to a great start with this novel, filled with richly drawn characters and stories that will warm the heart. If this book is any indication, the next two installments will be winners. WEDDING RING comes highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Marie Hashima Lofton

Rating:
Summary: Southern Roots
Review: WEDDING RING by Emilie Richards

Here's a book I would recommend to women who love to read about southern traditions and families. WEDDING RING by Emilie Richards takes place in the Shenandoah Valley --- Toms Brook, Virginia --- and centers on three generations of women that are learning to deal with each other and come to terms with a death in the family that occurred three years ago. Tessa McCrae had lost her only child Kayley in a car accident, and is still not able to deal with the emotions from this tragedy. She blames herself, and has shut out her husband to the point that she's driving him away, using the excuse of helping out with her grandmother to stay away from Mack during this particular summer. In the mean time, her mother Nancy has asked Tessa to help her with cleaning up Grandmother Helen's home in Toms Brook, and to their dismay they find that it's a mess. The term "pack rat" doesn't even describe the condition of this house.

The many different quilts that are found in the house help bring the bickering women together. Helen and Nancy open up their souls and tell the stories of their childhoods and early years of marriage with the discovery of each quilt. It's a side that Tessa has never seen of each woman and it changes her perspective of both of them.

The Wedding Ring quilt is one that helps unite the three women, and there is a history behind it. Tessa learns how the quilt was created, through the stories told by both Nancy and Helen, and it is a touching story. While the purpose of the title is not apparent from the start, by the end of the book the reader will understand how the Wedding Ring quilt is central to the story. The first of a trilogy of books called the Shenandoah Album trilogy, based on these traditional quilts, I found WEDDING RING a very enjoyable read. It's a type of book that will be enjoyed by women who like to read about family and traditions, in particular those families deeply rooted in the south.