The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love by Alice A. Carter

The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love by Alice A. Carter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5.0/5.0 - Obtained through the generous ILL from UT Knoxville, this biographical volume of three early 20th century female artists and illustrators was fascinating. Jessie Wilcox Smith and Elizabeth Shippen Green had an outstanding career providing illustrations for magazines such as Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping, and for books such as a Child's Garden of Verses and Longfellow's Evangeline. Oakley was a renown muralist with work in Ohio and Pennsylvania state buildings. The three women, along with a non-artist friend named Henrietta Cousins lived together for many years, supporting each other and furthering their works. The name of the book comes from a home the four women shared, called the Red Rose Inn. The book also includes wonderful examples of their work.

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The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart

The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - Coincidentally, I read this book on the heels of Their Eyes Were Watching God, which also has a turpentine camp during the depression as one of its settings. The turpentine industry was essential to the navy to provide solvent that kept wooden ships watertight. Prior to reading these two books, I was totally unfamiliar with this process. It involved slashing pine trees to obtain their resin, which was shipped off for processing. The work was hard, hot, and the living conditions were poor. The camps were operated on a peonage system, meaning workers were paid in scrip, and perpetually in debt to the company store.
This is the background for the story of Del, Rae and Cornelia. Del comes to the camp after nearly dying in a deliberate corn silo "accident" staged by his employer because he has seduced his wife. Rae comes after her husband dies, and Cornelia is married to the cruel, store owner, Otis. Through a series of circumstances, they help each other survive and escape Swallow Hill.
The author does a good job in bringing both the setting and the characters to life, and I felt like I learned something from the book.

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Little Souls by Sandra Dallas

Little Souls by Sandra Dallas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5/5.0 - Sandra Dallas is one of my favorite authors, and while this book is good, it isn't my favorite that she has written. I was drawn to the book by both the time period and the location (Denver in 1918, during the Spanish flu) because of a very personal connection to the setting. My grandmother, who was 18 and lived in Salmon, Idaho at the time traveled to Colorado to care for a family (who had moved there from Idaho) whose mother had the flu. It was on the train back to Idaho that she met my grandfather, who had just returned from the war. I loved reading about the setting, and the two sisters who cared so much for each other. I also enjoyed the Easter eggs, where the author mentioned to a place or an incident that took place in another book. Here is one example:

We'd wandered around the town looking at the quaint houses, one of them a mansion with a tennis court that had gone to seed. p. 189

This refers to The Bride's House.
Where the book performed less well for me was in believability. There were too many things happening (view spoiler)[ kidnapping, fiancés dying, the influenza epidemic, several rapes (off page), incest, bootlegging, adoption, etc. (hide spoiler)].
Overall, the good outweighed the bad, and it was an enjoyable book.

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