Potato Branch: Sketches of Mountain Memories by Joe Richard Morgan

Reviewed by Kristin

BPL Book Bingo takes us down paths where we might not usually travel, but we are often much enriched by taking those unforeseen directions.  Potato Branch:  Sketches of Mountain Memories by Joe Richard Morgan is one of those meandering trips down memory lane that I wouldn’t have picked up and enjoyed had I not been looking for a book set within 100 miles.  

 Having grown up in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina, Morgan weaves many a fine tale of his boyhood and kindly shares them with us in this slim volume.

Pick this up and you will become acquainted with Morgan’s mother, father, grandparents, aunts and uncles, various neighbors, girlfriends, cows, mules, dogs, and many more unique characters.  Some memories are sad, but most will have you nodding your head and chuckling, even if you have never plowed a field, used a three seater outhouse, or gone to an old-timey revival church service.

One story that I particularly enjoyed concerned Morgan’s neighbor, Mrs. Pearl Robertson, and her 1938 black Plymouth.  The Robertsons had recently retired from city life and had never needed a car before moving to a rural area.  Mrs. Robertson got it into her head that they needed a car, and she, not Mr. Robertson, would be the one to drive it.  Morgan was volunteered to help her learn to drive, and was the passenger for many a jolting ride to town.  Mrs. Robertson had trouble coordinating her feet for easing off the clutch while pressing down on the accelerator, and eventually ended up in a tangle with a wire fence and a hayfield.

Young Morgan grew up and left the mountains for the Marines and later continued his education in Illinois and England.  He has made teaching and writing his career.  From beehives to Model T Fords to amorous bulls, Morgan knows how to spin a tale which will have you laughing out loud and turning the page for just one more chapter.

Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The Case for Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales & Fairs by Barbara Holland

Reviewed by Kristin

Barbara Holland’s books have been featured in the BPL Bookblog in the past, notably when humor-minded Nancy wrote reviews of The Joy of Drinking in 2012 and Hail to the Chiefs: Presidential Mischief, Morals, & Malarkey from George W. to George W.  in 2013.  I had forgotten those entries when I picked up Bingo Night at the Fire Hall, but it was a pleasure to look back and laugh a little as Nancy regaled us with tidbits that had her snickering, if not downright rolling in the library aisles.

Holland inherited a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1990, made the decision to leave her fast-paced advertising career in Philadelphia, and headed for the hills near Bluemont, Virginia.  Once away from the big city, she learned that there are degrees of isolation:  living in “town” in the valley is certainly not the same as living “on the mountain.”  Coming from away, as she did, Holland met a tight-knit community where everyone knew everyone else, as well as everyone’s parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and third-cousins.  Eventually she finds her place at the diner, the tavern, the newspaper office and the post office counter.

Just close enough to Washington D.C. to appeal to the city workers, Holland’s little piece of the country began to attract commuters.  The tug between the more developed eastern part of the county and the wilder western part became less balanced over time.  Living in the western mountains, Holland began to lose the desire to be among the suited commuters rushing to their all-important jobs from their suburban/rural homes.  A particularly touching passage describes this phenomenon:

“I go east less and less.  All my life I’d lived on the eastern edge of the country and all my inner compasses pointed toward the Atlantic.  Now I can feel the heavy pull of the interior of the continent, that great bulk looming between the coastal slices and widely believed to be unpopulated.  Flying over it, civilized people pull down the shade and watch the movie.  From here, it tugs at my shoulder blades from the other side of the mountain.  I can see it from my mailbox up on the road.  It begins to feel more familiar than the east.”

While I didn’t find any laugh-out-loud passages in this book—Holland’s mentions of her attempts at gardening, her adventures plunking herself down on a bar stool in one of those places where everyone knows everyone, her job writing flowery obituaries in the local paper—all those brought this volume together into a very pleasant read.  The chapters are shaped as essays describing the slow pace of life on the mountain, and what was being lost as residential developments crept further and further into the former fields and foothills.  Published in 1997, I can only imagine what the area looks like now over twenty years later.  Holland passed away in 2010, by all accounts a feisty old lady till the end.  May we all be feisty until our final days, and may we all find a place like Holland’s gentle mountains to be our home.

A Murder for the Books by Victoria Gilbert

Reviewed by Jeanne

Librarian Amy Webber is settling into her new job in Taylorsford, Virginia, a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  She’s moved in with an aunt after a romantic relationship came to a dramatic end involving a cheating partner, a mis-thrown drink, and a college dean.  She thought that was the worst thing that could happen to her.  And then she looked in the Archives shed.

The Archives shed is a storage area for town records.  This time it also holds the dead body of a former library volunteer, a woman suffering from dementia who had claimed she was being followed.

As if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, Amy’s new neighbor turns out to be the very handsome and very single Richard Muir. He’s moving into a house he inherited from his great uncle, a well-known author.  The house has another claim to fame:  it was the site where a young wife was accused of poisoning her husband.  She was acquitted, but people still believe she got away with murder.  It’s no wonder she fled the town not long after her release from jail. Intrigued by both Richard and the history, Amy begins to delve into the cold case, leaving the police to investigate the more recent murder.

Someone seems afraid that Amy may know more than she realizes—but about which crime?

I picked this up mostly because of the setting:  both the library and Blue Ridge Mountains, but there was also the promise of a historical mystery and the author delivered on all counts.  She certainly knows her libraries, and there was much that rang true—so much so that I encouraged (a much nicer word than “forced”) co-workers to read sections. 

The historical aspect was ingenious and particularly satisfying; very well done plotting and research made it quite memorable and plausible.  The modern component was interesting but fewer real clues meant a chatty resolution as the culprit had to explain why and how.

Overall, I found this soft boiled mystery to be quite enjoyable.  There are a number of likeable characters, including Amy herself, her match-making Aunt Lydia, and attractive Richard; an intriguing mystery; and maybe a touch of supernatural intervention.

I’ll be looking forward to the next in the series.

Season of the Dragonflies by Sarah Creech

Reviewed by Jeanne

For four generations, the Lenore women have crafted scents. It all started back when Great-Grandmother Serena ran away with a handsome young man to the rainforest of Borneo and discovered a wondrous, magical plant which became the main ingredient—the very secret main ingredient.  These perfumes don’t just smell nice.  They enhance the strongest traits of the wearer, enabling her to rise to the top of whatever profession she is suited for. The scents are sold only to a select few, and never to those who would compete in the same profession.

The business has been passed down from mother to daughter until now.  A business which has thrived is now threatened from several sides.  Willow, the current matriarch, finds herself struggling to remember things.  Mya, the elder daughter, has always been considered the heir and has spent her life learning the trade at the expense of her personal life.  She is chaffing to take over from Willow’s control and may be willing to cross some lines to do it.  Younger daughter Lucia fled the business and the magic to marry an artist, but now that marriage is falling apart and she has nowhere to go.

Nowhere, that is,  but back home to the family farm in Virginia.  She dreads facing her mother and Willow, knowing she’ll be seen as a failure.  She’ll stay just long enough to decide what to do next. She has no idea that things are about to go very, very wrong.

In addition to the family tensions, a pop star client has reneged on her word and is threatening blackmail. Worst of all, the magical plants seem to be dying.  One way or another, it appears the company is doomed.

At its core, Season of the Dragonflies is a tale of mothers and daughters, sisters and suitors. It reminds me a bit of Sarah Addison Allen’s books with the blend of romance, family relationships, and magic.  It also seems to take to heart the motto “Virginia is for Lovers.”  The female characters are strong and interesting, ready to make their own choices instead of passively waiting.  Sometimes these choices are the right ones, but they accept the responsibility.  A sheen of magic shimmers through the book, from the perfume itself to the dragonflies that seem to follow Lucia to Mya’s deer.  Creech uses the Blue Ridge Mountain setting to good effect, tying the most of the characters closely to the land.  The male characters don’t have as much depth or personality, but then they are just the means to an end.  This is a fantasy, after all, and we just want to get to the “happily ever after.” 

This is a debut novel. I expect we’ll be hearing more from Ms. Creech in the future.