Friday, May 28, 2010

Bloodroot


Bloodroot is the name of a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison. It is also the perfect title of this novel, which is as much about a place as it is about people. The setting is Appalachia, with its stunning natural beauty amidst a hardscrabble life of poverty. Myra grows up in this lovely place, and she is a beauty herself, but she seems destined to a life of trouble and hardship. She is a wild child and has been given a special gift, the "touch," but sometimes life's greatest gifts turn out to be the source of greatest sorrows. Amy Greene gives us the interwined and hopelessly linked stories of the families that live on Bloodroot Mountain, and you will feel that you're a part of it, too.

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