Review: The Springsweet

Author: Saundra Mitchell
Publish date: April 17, 2012
Source: Purchased and signed at RT :)
"Heartbroken over the tragic death of her fiancé, seventeen-year-old Zora Stewart leaves Baltimore for the frontier town of West Glory, Oklahoma, to help her young widowed aunt keep her homestead going. There she discovers that she possesses the astonishing ability to sense water under the parched earth. When her aunt hires her out as a "springsweet” to advise other settlers where to dig their wells, Zora feels the burden of holding the key to something so essential to survival in this unforgiving land. Even more, she finds herself longing for love the way the prairie thirsts for water. Maybe, in the wildness of the territories, Zora can finally move beyond simply surviving and start living." (Goodreads)

The Springsweet is a companion novel to The Vespertine, and is told from a different character's POV than the first book. I stupidly did not realize this until AFTER I read the chapter. Everything made a lot more sense after that. (Duh, Kyle.) Anyway, I loved The Springsweet even more than The Vespertine and think everyone should read it!

Zora is the wonderful narrator of this book and I pretty much thought she was awesome. She is trying to work through some traumatic events and decides to move to Oklahoma to live with her aunt Birdie, who is only a few years older than Zora. I LOVED the setting. Maybe it's my love of the Little House books shining through, but I adore books that take place on the prairie like this. PLUS they lived in a sod house. On the Banks of Plum Creek, anyone?

The characters here were great, especially Emerson. I liked that he was so mysterious at the beginning and then his character was unraveled as the story progressed. I liked Zora as a narrator more than Amelia, who narrated The Vespertine. Since this is a companion novel, you don't HAVE to read The Vespertine first, but I would suggest it so you have more background info.

Saundra Mitchell's writing continues to be superb. She definitely has a way with words, but not in a flowery or overwrought way. The length of The Springsweet seemed perfect: concise, but satisfying. Suffice to say, I loved meeting Saundra Mitchell at RT. She was so nice and we even talked about how great libraries are :) 

Thanks, Heidi, for reviewing this series so enthusiastically and making me want to read them! I can't wait for Aetherborne!

Review: The Vespertine

Author: Saundra Mitchell
Publish date: 2011
Source: Library
"It’s the summer of 1889, and Amelia van den Broek is new to Baltimore and eager to take in all the pleasures the city has to offer. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset—visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. However, a forbidden romance with Nathaniel, an artist, threatens the new life Amelia is building in Baltimore. This enigmatic young man is keeping secrets of his own—still, Amelia finds herself irrepressibly drawn to him. When one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia’s world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she’s not the seer of dark portents, but the cause."

I discovered The Vespertine after doing some research about the authors attending the RT Booklovers Convention this upcoming weekend (Are you going? Let me know!!). Saundra Mitchell will be signing, so I decided to give The Vespertine a try and ended up enjoying it for the most part. I got it from the library, but I heard the sequel, The Springsweet, will be for sale at RT, so I plan to buy that one and get it signed.

I love historical fiction novels, so I was really intrigued by the combination of that genre with paranormal. I was also a little leery, since that combo isn't too popular, but I liked what Saundra Mitchell did. I adore the old timey customs that she included, like calling cards. I remember learning about those in the Little House series and thinking they sounded pretty awesome. Apparently my love for 19th century calling cards has been rekindled.

Ms. Mitchell's writing style was certainly beautiful too, in addition to the premise of the novel. Everything flowed well, although there were a few times that the writing felt a bit gimmicky, like she was trying too hard. That didn't happen much, though, and I was mostly impressed. I was a bit confused by the switching of the time frames of the narrative, but was able to figure it out fairly quickly.

Other than a few nitpicky things about the writing itself, I enjoyed The Vespertine and look forward to hopefully buying The Springsweet and meeting Saundra Mitchell this weekend! I have a lot of unanswered questions about Amelia and am hoping they are answered in the next book!