Book Review - Beyond Molasses Creek

Okay folks, I am beginning my year with posts of a couple of my favorite subjects:  books and karate. I will post a cooking item soon, that should wrap up the big three in my favorites category.

My first February book review is for the book "Beyond Molasses Creek" by Nicole Seitz.  I have to say that I enjoy reviewing books for Booksneeze because it is a branch of Thomas Nelson publishing.  Most of these books have a Christian message, some subtle, some not so subtle.  This book left it out entirely.  The setup was there.  The opportunity to show a need and a trust in GOD was ready to be taken.  It was ripe, almost falling from the tree.  Yet it was ignored.

That aside, it was a very unique storyline.  Ally Green comes home because her father has died and she must take care of his, now her, house.  Vesey Washington,  Ally's across the creek neighbor and best childhood friend, appears just when she needs him.  Their friendship has withstood racial tensions, years of absence, and forbidden love.

A woman half a world away, Sunila, also ties into the story.  She is different from all those around her and she is an artist in a gravel pit.  She must find out why she is different and where the "book" came from that she cannot read, but she knows holds all the answers.

Nicole Seitz does a wonderful job weaving the three stands of the characters together.  It is not often you find a story told from three different points of view.  Two of the characters share a common background.  Two search for their past and their future.  Once character is sure of his life and his choices, while one had no choice and the last felt her choices may not have been right at all.

Each is looking for something to guide them, a reason to go on, a purpose to fulfill.  With the void in their lives, they feel aimless, yet driven to find and reach their goal.  Their stories come slowly together revealing just enough at a time to keep you turning pages, but not so much that you get lost in the overload of information.

Beyond Molasses Creek invites you to travel through time to a place where characters are shaped and choices are made.  And the work it takes to live with the consequences.