Tuesday 6 February 2018

A Discovering Diamonds review of: Seven Kinds of Rain by K. Lyn Wurth



Amazon UK £8.00 £9.81
Amazon US  $10.38  $13.95
Amazon CA $11.69

Fictional saga / Coming of age
1900s
North America

Book One of the River Saga

‘On a southern Nebraska prairie in 1919, in small-town Darkwater Creek, an abandoned housemaid with vaudeville memories, a railroad magnate’s neglected son, and a runaway Pawnee boy come of age where money is power, the right name brings privilege, and the color of your skin can make you disappear.          
Witnesses to criminal tragedy, Margaret Rose, Jack and Kuruk gather in their riverside treehouse for courage. Their love and loyalty are strong, but will the town’s corruption divide them?
Seven Kinds of Rain revives three unwanted children’s voices, a tall-grass prairie scarred by railroad tracks, the mythic frontier’s fading heartbeat, and the violence that stole the West.’

The author seems to have the research well defined, with excellent detail and feel of a Nebraskan town in the early 1900s, where prejudices, misconceptions and a will to merely survive from one day to the next takes precedence.

Readers may find the alternating first/third person narrative confusing, although the strategy is to highlight the difference between how adults and children think, feel and view events. Once you become used to these changes, though, the narrative reads well. The children in question, are from three very different ‘social groups’: a Pawnee Indian, Kuruk, Margaret Rose, an orphaned girl, and Jack, the highly privileged son of the town’s mayor. How their lives intertwine, how they face the rigours, pleasures and tragedies of life is an absorbing read – especially recommended for readers who have a passionate interest in the early 1900s of American settlement and development – both social and practical.

As a series it would be beneficial to read the books in order, though. My only small comment is that maybe the e-book version is somewhat over-priced?

© Anne Holt


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