Incredible review of Johnnie Come Lately by Kathleen M. Rodgers (Note the prose of the last sentence! Beautiful!)
By Ellen Thornton on
December 27, 2014
Format: Kindle
Edition Verified Purchase
I just finished
reading Johnnie Come Lately and immediately returned to page one so I
could have the pleasure of reading again this bighearted story about the
Kitchen family of Portion, Texas. Quite simply I do not want the story to end.
And I’m glad to learn author Kathleen M. Rodgers is writing a sequel. I love
the characters in Rodger’s novel, the generous voice of the story, its
language, insights and humor, the wise descriptions of emotion, the plotting,
the perfect-pitch tension, pacing, and drama in even the smallest scenes. It
was so easy to identify with the Kitchen family and the sorrows, failures and
challenges in their lives, but most especially it’s easy to fall in love with
Rodger’s engaging protagonist, Johnnie Kitchen. Johnnie has come a long way
since the days early in her life when her emotionally unstable mother
disappeared and the terrifying eating disorder bulimia nearly killed the
vulnerable young girl. We meet her after she’s married and become the mother of
three young people in various stages of taking wrong turns and finding
themselves. But the focus is Johnnie and her quest to make sense of old family
secrets and tragedies, her desire to win her husband’s forgiveness and her
longing to find her mother and learn the identity of her father. Throughout,
she’s stalked by the terrifying demon of self-destruction. This novel is a little like a spring day in Texas beneath storm clouds
and slanting rays of sunshine, where, alongside a gritty highway, millions of
exquisite wildflowers bloom.
Published by Camel Press http://camelpress.com/
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