Mystery Monday

Good Evening my Fellow Book Dragons. Our Gem this evening is deceiving. It looks like but a plain chunk of bituminous coal. Flat black, a bit shiny in places, nothing to write home about…but wait, crack it open, there are lines within and a large piece of something else in the middle. The lines are blood red, the large piece within appears to be a diamond in the rough. This is Gem Maker Jess Montgomery’s “The Widows”.

I am writing this from an undisclosed mountain somewhere deep in the Appalachians. This tale hit home and hard. I have watched the coal miners and the businessmen. I have ached for the wives and the little children heading to the script store, the rented houses, the aching bellies. Listened to the stories told. Watched the stories from the point of view of the law, as well. This book is not made from whole cloth, this tale has legs.

Ms. Montgomery’s Lily Ross is her husband’s Deputy. When he is killed while out transporting a Miner who is a prisoner, she seeks the truth as to his cause of death. She will not accept that it is an accident. She is not a weak woman. She handles herself well in the jail. She is pregnant and the mother of two small children. But she may not be the only Mrs. Ross. She may not be the only woman who loved Daniel.

This is a story of grit, determination, and bravery. Something most Appalachian women have – because they must – it is born and bred into them. They watch their mothers, their grandmothers, their great-grandmothers. Without it they would not have survived nearly 300 years in these hills.

This is the fictionalized account of the first female sheriff in the state of Ohio. Ms. Montgomery has hit a deep vein. Her characters are three dimensional. These are the women one expects to find here. Hard working, tucking heartaches away because stopping to mourn is not an option most of the time. Things are hard here much of the time and “The Widows” highlights this. There is little romanticism here. Cold hard facts like hardtack and black coffee stream across the page like frost on a May morning.

If you want a story that is real, that is human and will hold your attention from start to finish, this is it. Bravo, Ms. Montgomery! I look forward to your next one in your Kinship Series!

I would also suggest after you read Ms. Montgomery’s book, if you are still interested in the subject, you watch the documentary “Harlan County, USA” on YouTube.

Until tomorrow, I remain, your humble Book Dragon,

Drakon T. Longwitten

I received a copy of this book from #minotaurbooks as part of a Good Reads giveaway. My opinions are my own.