Reviewer: Samantha
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
“We Walker women were born screaming into this world, the beginning of a lifelong quest to find what would quiet us. But whatever drove us away was never stronger than the pull of what brought us back….”
When Vivien Walker left her home in the Mississippi Delta, she swore never to go back, as generations of the women in her family had. But in the spring, nine years to the day since she’d left, that’s exactly what happens—Vivien returns, fleeing from a broken marriage and her lost dreams for children.
What she hopes to find is solace with “Bootsie,” her dear grandmother who raised her, a Walker woman with a knack for making everything all right. But instead she finds that her grandmother has died and that her estranged mother is drifting further away from her memories. Now Vivien is forced into the unexpected role of caretaker, challenging her personal quest to find the girl she herself once was.
But for Vivien things change in ways she cannot imagine when a violent storm reveals the remains of a long-dead woman buried near the Walker home, not far from the cypress swamp that is soon to give up its ghosts. Vivien knows there is now only one way to rediscover herself—by uncovering the secrets of her family and breaking the cycle of loss that has haunted them for generations.
Review:
Karen White always intrigues me with her stories, and this one was no different. It was a bit daunting starting the book because the hardcover is so thick, but it didn’t take long for me to get swept away in the story. Books written in two parts – past and present – are a new favorite of mine, so I was immediately hooked on the story and the Walker women. The complexity of family dynamics and what is means to be a mother shines through the pages, and with a twist of Southern hospitality and a mystery nearly eighty years in the making, all the ingredients for a fantastic read are wrapped up in A Long Time Gone. I almost wished the ending would have featured POV from Adelaide instead of Vivien and the length was pretty darn long, but a very solid read that I highly recommend.
