Someone New Worth Reading

river
Originally uploaded by chronicbooker3

I received this from Harper Collins and their First Look Program.

I think this is the best book I have read so far this year and it is from a first time author and (I believe) Canadian to boot. The book is to be in stores sometime this month and I believe it is well worth reading. Donna Milner worked in real estate until her husband encouraged her to start writing. The manuscript was found in her agent's slush pile and is now being published in at least seven countries including Canada. Milner lives in British Columbia with her hubby and is currently at work on her next novel.

It is only in the past few years that I have found many Canadian authors that I enjoy. Until then I often found them wordy and boring. I guess I was reading the wrong ones. Because in the past few years I have read quite a few Canadians that I really loved. I often hear people say (about books) that they didn't like a certain book because they didn't like a certain character and what they stood for. I think that it is a superb author that can evoke such emotion from us and pull us into the reality of their story. Some Canadian authors that I believe are well worth checking out are Ann -Marie MacDonald, Bernice Morgan, Joan Clark (one of my all time favorite authors), Mary Lawson, D. R. MacDonald, and Peter Robinson ( a transplanted Brit for well over 30 years).

Anyways, back to what I intended to blog about - After River - is full of characters that work their way into your heart. Just as important was the time and the setting that this story took place . It started in the mid 1960's on a small western farm, in a time when the world was changing fast and a somewhat blanket of innocence was leaving society. The main protagonist Natalie Ward then a 15 yr old believed as I think most of us did in our younger years that our families were exempt from tragedy and that nothing could ever happen to change that. The slow gentle setting of this novel reminded me of a time when my life seemed so much more enveloped in goodness. Donna Milner was able to take me back to a gentler time in my life with many of her examples of life in the 1960's and 70's. However, the story went on to show me that even in what a lot of us remember as good years, pain and heartache still managed to creep into everyday life. Until River (an American Draft Dodger) showed up at the Ward's farm Natalie believed that nothing - not secrets, betrayals, or people could ever come between the love in her family.

I don't want to give away the story so I will just give the description off the back of the book and hope that you enjoy it like I did.

"Growing up on a dairy farm in the mountains of British Columbia in the 1960s, just three miles north of the American border, Natalie Ward knew little of the outside world. But she had her family, a family so close and loving that Natalie believed they were the envy of the nearby town of Atwood – particularly her eldest brother Boyer, whom Natalie held especially close to her heart.But Natalie began to question her family’s idyllic existence the summer she turned fifteen. The arrival of a soft-spoken stranger, an American draft-dodger called River, would test the morals and beliefs of the family and the community to breaking point. The series of events following that summer day would leave relationships shattered and the Ward family changed forever."