Prayers For Sale

I have yet to come up with a good system for keeping track of books I have read, favourite authors, books I want to read, etc. Case in point - I like Sandra Dallas' books. I intend to read everything she writes - but I forgot that - which may not be a bad thing because when I did remember about her, I had three new books to read!
I like Dallas because she writes historical fiction and I appreciate the times she writes about. She does a very good job of researching and presenting facts. Her books could be depressing for some readers because she writes honestly about the trying times her characters go through - especially women. But those are offset by themes of friendship, forgiveness and love.
Oh, yeah, and her protagonists aren't always comely young women. In Prayers For Sale, the main character, Hennie Comfort, is eighty-six years old and looking at the end of her eventful life which covers the time period of Civil War through the Great Depression - two of my favourite eras about which to read.

The setting for this book is the fictional Middle Swan, Colorado during the gold rush days. Dallas admits the town is patterned after Breckenridge in Summit County, CO, where she lived for many years. I believe one of the reasons I liked the book so much was because it reminded me of the trip my Mom, children and I took to that area thirty-six years ago. I have a problem with the altitude, snow and cold in the winter, but in the summer, the Rockies and those old mining towns can provide an interesting vacation for flatlanders.
We had a good time exploring deserted miner's cabins, mountain streams and other artifacts from the gold mining days. This is a picture of my son, Doug, atop the 'tailings' from a mine - or perhaps one of the gravel ridges left behind by the gold dredges described in Prayers For Sale.

Charlie Taylor's Water Wheel at Idaho Springs, CO was moved and refurbished as a tourist attraction where Bridal Veil Falls plunge into Clear Creek. It is visible from I-70. The wheel was built by Taylor in the 1890's and used to power a gold-mining stamp mill. Our high country vacation  home base was a friend's condo at Keystone. It was perfect for exploring the towns of Dillon, Silverthorne, Silver Plume, Georgetown and Breckenridge.

Another reason I really liked this book was the use of 'old-timey' sayings. For instance: "I baked a chess pie this morning. We'll take it along." When Hennie looked confused, the girl explained, "Brown sugar and eggs mostly."
"Kentucky pie! That's what we called it. But what will your man think when he comes home to supper, and there's no hereafter?" Hereafter meaning dessert.
There is another example which I have only heard, well, read, one other time - and that was in my Mom's diary from 1938. From the book: "Nit shook her head. "When we got married, Dick and I wanted us to go out to ourself. So we moved away from our homefolks."
Mom and Dad lived with his parents for the first six months after their marriage. When they finally moved to their own farm, there was one line in Mom's diary for that date: "We moved to ourselves today." I think that is such a unique saying. I can't find if it is peculiar to a certain region or nationality.
The above picture of Mom was taken in 1941 in front of the living room windows of the place they moved to ourselves.

Dead In The Water is Dana Stabenow's third in the series featuring Kate Shugak. These mysteries were recommended by a friend and while I am enjoying them and will continue to read the ones our library has, they make me cold. Make me cold - not leave me cold. They are set in Alaska. I get so into a book when I'm reading that I am in the book. In this novel, Kate has gone undercover to discover what happened to two missing crew members from a crab fishing vessel. She's working on deck pulling up the crab pots describing how cold it is and I'm freezing right along with her. Between this book and the previous one set in Colorado which described a lot of snow and cold in the mountains, I've been cold all week!
I do like Stabenow's writing and enjoy learning more about the native Alaskan culture as well as the importance Alaska and its islands played during World War II.

I am such a huge fan of Adriana Trigiani. She is one author I don't forget about. I am always waiting impatiently for her next book. I expected The Shoemaker's Wife to be sort of a continuation of her previous books, Lucia, Lucia and Very Valentine. From the standpoint of writing about her Italian roots, it is somewhat, though this book is more of an epic tale about young people leaving the old country and striving to make a go of it in America.
Central to the story line are the lives of Ciro and Enza who meet briefly as teenagers in the Italian Alps.There is an immediate attraction, but they go their separate ways - both ending up in New York. Eventually their paths cross, but Ciro has a girlfriend and Enza is concentrating on her career. Then WWI intervenes. They are star-crossed lovers who finally find their way back together after the war ends. They marry and move to Minnesota. (More cold weather.)
I was a bit disappointed with this latest Trigiani offering. It seemed like once the lovers were finally united her writing became almost stilted. The book went on and on through another generation, another world war, but it seemed to me it would have been a better read had it ended with their marriage. It was almost like the author's heart wasn't into writing any further but she felt some obligation to tie up the ends of everyone's lives.

Of these three books, I liked Sandra Dallas's the best. I'm glad I have two more of her books to look forward to reading.