The summer Jessi turns 13 she thinks she has killed a man. It begins when her family takes in her 15 year old friend after a fire kills her friends parents. The trouble is that this is the south in 1932 and Jessi's friend Gemma is "colored". The family must stand up to threats known and unknown including the Klan to do what they know is right. Jessi must defend herself and her friend Gemma from the Klan when they are left alone one evening and the Klan attempts to burn the girls inside their home. Shots are fired and one of the Klan members is later found dead from a gunshot wound. Jessi tries to deal with the guilt until the revelations at the end of the story.

The way this book reminded me of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". Jessi, the main character and narrator, begins much like Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird" but grows from there.

Get the next book involving these characters and continue to read on to see how their lives eventually turn out.

Like things have come a long way since the thirties but that prejudices still remain and we could take a good lesson from this author about snap judgments and vigilante justice.

Did a wonderful job of transporting the reader into the setting and creating characters that the reader will truly care about and want to be involved with.

It was an engrossing yet easy read without foul language or gratuitous violence and it conveyed a message of faith and what it can do in our lives.

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Created Dec 13, 2009 at 11:54pm • Submit your own review...