Wednesday, July 31, 2013

"A Heavenly Land ... Eliza's Story" ... Buy This Book

 
Disclaimer: I met Cathy Slusser once, several  years ago. We found each other's blogs early in our blogging careers and each became a regular reader of the other. When I first began reading Cathy's blog,"From A Heavenly Land", she was working on "Eliza's Story" and would post bits of it on her blog.
So there, all that is out front.
Rest assured that my review is based on the book and not on "Blogger Buddy Factor".
If I didn't like the book, this review would have politely ... never happened.
 
 
Cathy Slusser has written a fascinating novel of Florida frontier life based on historical research and Cathy's own local knowledge as a native Floridian. The Eliza in the story was a real woman and did live on Terra Ceia Island during the 19th century when Florida was a sparsely populated frontier. As the author states in her forward,
"From historical records, I know much about her (Eliza), but little about who she really was inside. The facts you will read are true."
 
Running through the tale is a strong thread of faith as Eliza deals with, ... well, more than anybody should have to deal with. The author handles this pretty well, so that I didn't feel like I was being preached at ... I don't have much patience for that, so it could have been a deal breaker.
 
But Cathy weaves her own strong faith into the tale in a way that makes it Eliza's and that works.
 
I know a little about Florida, both past and present, and the history is good, the story telling is strong, and the events draw the reader in.
 
 
 
 
PS: My wife loved it even more than I did.

4 comments:

Island Rider said...

Sniff, sniff. You made me cry. Thus means so much coming from someone I really respect. The review was an unexpected joy tonight. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

It really is a lovely book. Cathy can feel very good about her first novel. Plus, you know...I admire any writer that actually finishes a book and gets it on the shelf!

amarkonmywall said...

Oh, I'm not anonymous. It's Vicki. I just lose track of all that sign-in stuff.

Sayre said...

I LOVED Cathy's book! Am now eagerly awaiting the next installment. You hit the nail on the head.