Book Reviews

Ballantine Books
Hardcover

August 2002

Setting: Pre-Civil War – Southern Kentucky 1866

Magnificent! What a heartfelt way to make you realize how important second chances are in life, and the significance of forgiving and moving on to a better, greater love if you’ll just take that final step. Jill Marie Landis only gets better with every book. I thought SUMMERMOON was the end all, be all book for Ms. Landis last year, but Ms. Landis has managed to top it with the stunning MAGNOLIA CREEK. This book belongs on your keeper shelf.

Sara Collier knew the moment she saw Dru Talbot board her father’s ferry that he was the man she was going to marry. Dru was leaving for medical school. He was entranced by the lovely young woman who spoke to him while collecting his fare, and laughed when she told him they would marry. Two years later her prediction came true. After a whirlwind engagement and marriage within two weeks Dru and Sara were married. She could hardly believe it since she was from the lowly Collier family whereas Dru came from the rich Talbot family who owned the mill in town. Sara’s biggest heartache is the fact that she can’t convince Dru not to leave the morning after their wedding to join the Confederate army.

Tragedy comes when his best friend comes home telling Sara that Dru died in his arms. Shocked and broken after spending time with Dru’s sister Louzanna, a woman who mourns her dead fiancé and is delusional, Sara leaves town after she can’t stay in Dru’s home any longer knowing she will never see him again. She is also determined not to end up like her sister-in-law. Years later, Sara comes back to Magnolia Creek desperate to make a new life for herself after a past mistake. The only person who comes to her rescue is Louzanna, who thinks her arrival a blessing.

Dru comes through his ordeal of having amnesia after a gunshot wound, and is thankful to be alive, and the vision of coming home to Sara, his young bride, is one of the things that have kept him sane. I like the way Ms. Landis intersperses earlier memories of when Dru and Sara met as it fills you in on the information that ties in beautifully to what is happening now. Dru arrives home the day after Sara and is thrilled to see her, and then shocked when the truth stares him in the eyes. All he’d dreamed about was having a wife and family and being the town doctor. Now it is all changed and he may have to face the whole town down if he decides to keep Sara as his wife. He doesn’t know if he can handle it, but thank the good Lord Dru is a man of principal that is both loving and caring enough that he doesn’t do anything rash. He’s seen a lot of misery during the war and is about to face a lot of trials right here in his hometown one of which is will he have any patients when the town finds out Sara is back?

Sara is strong, resourceful, and optimistic, and she has a way with healing and charms learned from her granddaddy Collier. She is compassionate and has had a lot to endure over her young life with sixteen family members living in small quarters. Times during the Civil War strained people in too many ways as Ms. Landis brings out so well in this extremely well written book that touches on the emotional issues faced by many after the Civil War is over. Sara will never give up on her love for Dru, even if she has to leave him to prove it.

The secondary characters in MAGNOLIA CREEK are memorable, especially Dru’s sister, Louzanna. The townsfolk, the Collier family, and Dru’s friends make this book come to life.

MAGNOLIA CREEK is all about past mistakes, enduring love, forgiveness, challenges, and most of all second chances. It is a beautiful, heart wrenching love story of two people falling in love when they don’t really know each other when they are too young, and meeting again after the pain and death of a war that has changed them both. Now that they are woman and man, they will be up against prejudice, loyalty, family ties, past mistakes, and what being married is all about. Ms. Landis packs a lot of emotion and history into a novel you will love and cherish since you almost feel like you are living and breathing right along with the characters in MAGNOLIA CREEK. Fantastic storytelling by a real star who brings you nothing but the best time after time.
Review by Suzanne Coleburn
scoleburn@msn.com

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