Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Cynthia Ruchti's When the Morning Glory Blooms ~ Reviewed



When The Morning Glory Blooms 
By Cynthia Ruchti
Pages 351
Binding Softcover
Release Date Feb 1, 2013
Publisher Abingdon Press
ISBN 142673543X


Description:

Becky rocks a baby that rocked her world. Sixty years earlier, with her fiance Drew in the middle of the Korean Conflict, Ivy throws herself into her work at a nursing home to keep her sanity and provide for the child Drew doesn't know is coming. Ivy cares for Anna, an elderly patient who taxes Ivy's listening ear until the day she suspects Anna's tall tales are not the ramblings of dementia. They're fragments of Anna's disjointed memories of a remarkable life. Finding a faint thread of hope she can't resist tugging, Ivy records Anna's memoir, scribbling furiously after hours to keep up with the woman's emotion-packed, grace-hemmed stories. Is Ivy's answer buried in Anna's past? Becky, Ivy, Anna--three women fight a tangled vine of deception in search of the blossoming simplicity of truth.

Review:

When the Morning Glory Blooms revolves around the stories of three women from three different eras with a common bond.  Becky is struggling to keep her family together after her teenage daughter has a baby and isn’t taking the responsibility for it.  60 years earlier, we follow the story of Ivy, whose fiancĂ© leaves to fight in the Korean Conflict.  Ivy finds herself alone and pregnant, but finds a friend in Anna, an elderly patient at the nursing home Ivy works at.  We also follow the story of Anna, who tells stories of her life in the 1890’s, which give Ivy hope that her life will get better.
        I LOVED this book.  It jumped back and forth between the lives of all three women frequently, yet I was never confused or thrown off.  It was very well written, and each of the stories kept me on my toes, wondering what was going to happen next.  And I loved the way the author tied all of the stories together.  I would definitely recommend this book, and I would read it again.
Sarah Meyers

No comments: