THE COVE by Ron Rash, 2012.
The Sheltons have lived in the rugged and forbidding cove near Mars Hill in Madison County, NC ever since they came from Tennessee. Even they think it's a dark, gloomy place, and locals believe it to be haunted and dangerous. Many believe the Shelton family is cursed, and that young and lonely Laurel Shelton is a witch. Laurel, however, knows she is waiting for her chance at happiness.
  Hank, Laurel's brother, served his time in France during the Great War, was injured and sent home with honors. His hope is to get the family farm in order and then to marry a local girl. He has already gotten permission from Carolyn Weatherbee's father to marry her. Industrious and protective, he has learned to do most everything on the farm himself, even though he lost a hand during his military service.
  Into their lives come Walter and his flute, found in the woods by Laurel after he's stung by yellow jackets. An attractive and mute young man who wants to get to New York, he plays music more beautiful than even birdsong, wins over the Sheltons (especially Laurel) and becomes a part of their everyday lives. Walter, though, harbors a somewhat dangerous secret. Even though they have their suspicions and questions, Laurel and Hank both like and trust him, and after they convince him to stay awhile, he assists Hank in doing the farm work, and eventually returns Laurel's feelings of love, much to Hank's satisfaction. Their neighbor, old Slidell Hampton, supports and helps them, all the while feeling something is not quite right. Fueled by her concern and her love for Walter, Laurel, helped by the local schoolteacher, Miss Calicut, does some digging into the mystery and comes to her own conclusions.
   Meanwhile, the Mars Hill community, in a fit of patriotism, becomes stirred up by all things German (including books and the local languages professor at the college). News of an escape of a German detainee from the Hot Springs prison camp and a wanted poster goad local army recruiter Chauncey Feith into taking action. Patriotic fervor runs high in the area, even though the war itself is winding down in Europe. As the story progresses and events unfold and secrets revealed, the Sheltons and Walter become the targets of violence, and a heartrending tragedy occurs.
  Rash has penned a thoroughly engaging story about characters struggling to find happiness and some sense of peace in the midst of a terrible time. He uses plenty of period details concerning life in Appalachian North Carolina throughout the story to keep the reader moving ahead, his narrative has a good pace, and he takes his time in drawing out Walter's secret. He excels in creating three dimensional characters the reader can care about and he carefully weaves their stories together in order to paint an interesting and vivid picture of their lives and the results of their actions. Enjoyable and entertaining, excellent storytelling by a gifted writer.
 

THE ORCHARDIST by Amanda Coplin, 2012.
This debut novel is a lush period saga set in the Pacific Northwest at the end of the nineteenth century and it continues forward into the early decades of the twentieth, and depicts how several individuals brought together by circumstances are forged into a sort of family.
   The major character in this vividly written story is William Talmadge, who had moved into the valley during the Civil War, lost his family there, and then remained a fairly solitary figure, tending to and extending his orchards of apricot and apple trees, with help only from a roving band of horse herders. A gentle, quiet sort of man, he asked for little and remained a fairly self-sufficient person for many years. Until one day, when his peaceful existence is shattered by two scared young girls who steal his fruit in the town market and then follow him into the shelter of his orchards.
   Jane and Della are sisters, running from a drug and alcohol addict named Michaelson, and have been living some months in the wild. Talmadge cautiously takes them in and tries to protect them from whatever they have left behind.Their existence in the orchard is kept fairly quiet, except from the local midwife/herbalist, Caroline Middey, who kindly aids them over the course of the story in many ways.The girls, feral and distrusting even of Talmadge's kindness, uneasily hang around, and even give birth on his property, but Della's twins both die, while Jane's daughter, Angelene, survives.Then one day, the harmony in the valley is disrupted when Michaelson and his henchmen show up, leading to an unexpected tragedy that sets off a chain of events that changes all their lives.
  Coplin has written a very readable story about how the compassion in one man is awakened and he learns to care, to open himself to others and their problems, to realize what he's missed, and to live a fuller life with all its accompanying challenges and rewards. She does a credible job with her setting, with period description, adding good details about fruit picking and marketing, the coming of the railroad to the area, life in local prisons, provides a good glimpse of changing times in the Pacific Northwest. Her language is lush and flowing, the narrative moves along at a good pace, and she takes her time with developing her characters. At times it did seem somewhat slow and a bit too lengthy. However, Coplin's sensitive and realistic portrayal of the relationships between Talmadge, Della, Jane, and Angelene were well done and sympathetic, and the wise and motherly Caroline is a real standout. Dramatic and rich with emotion and power, Coplin's novel is an intelligent and engrossing character-driven story.

HEADING OUT TO WONDERFUL by Robert Goolrick, 2012.
Brownsburg, Virginia, in 1948 is a quiet and peaceful village nestled in the beautiful Valley of Virginia. Everyone knows everyone else and everyone knows their place in life. The world is slow paced here, meant to be enjoyed calmly and serenely.
   One day a stranger arrives, carrying with him two suitcases and not much else. One suitcase has personal items and a lot of money in it; the other contains a set of butcher knives. As the townspeople soon discover, the handsome and friendly man is Charlie Beale, and he wants to settle in their peaceful community. He becomes enamoured of some acreage along the river and wants it for himself, as well as employment, which he finds with the local butcher, Will Haislett. The Haisletts, Will and his schoolteacher wife Alma and their six-year-old son Sam, become a huge part of Charlie's life in the village.
   Charlie, a personable and charming character, adjusts to life in the community and learns his way around, helped along by the Haisletts. He enjoys the companionship of Sam, who becomes like a son to him, and Sam finds a kindred spirit in Charlie--they share a love of baseball, dogs, and being outdoors. Along with the dog Charlie purchases and names Jackie Robinson (for the baseball player), they become a familiar sight around town. However, their easy relationship changes from the time Charlie first sees the teenaged Sylvan Glass, wife of the richest resident of Brownsburg--he is certain that the two of them are meant to be together. Blonde and lovely and from a remote area of the county, Sylvan had been bought and paid for by Boatwright Glass, to be his wife and to live the sort of Hollywood/movie star life she's always dreamed about. But once Charlie enters her orbit, events are set into motion that will change the lives of those who dwell in Brownsburg and ultimately lead to a shockingly heartbreaking tragedy.
   Goolrick knows how to tell a story. With his nicely paced narrative, he pulls the reader into a deceptively simpler time that is no more and adroitly makes his characters come to life. His descriptions of Brownsburg and the surrounding landscape are wonderful and add so much to the telling of the story: details of cars, fashions, movies, buildings, the way the farmlands look, the old trees and the river, names of real places in the county, all meld together to create a meaningful atmosphere, a real sense of time and place. His characters are multifaceted and so human, easy to relate to and have feelings for, to be concerned about. I kept reading because I wanted to know what would happen to these people, I had to find out how their stories and conflicts would turn out. His principal characters are well done and believable as people: Charlie, with his desire to belong and his obsession with Sylvan; Sylvan's passion to live her life as something out of a movie; Boaty's greed and jealousy and vulgarity; Claudie Wiley (who deserves a book of her own), the solitary black seamstress who could almost magically sew anything and keep herself aloof; and young Sam, who practically hero-worships Charlie, who becomes a part of Charlie's and Sylvan's illicit affair and who ends up experiencing situations that no kid should.
   Emotional and satisfying, at times painful, part Gothic romance and part nostalgia, with unflinching language and beautiful description and involving characters, it's a tale that has it all: Power, money, grand ideas, golden dreams, lust, doomed love, suspense, growing up, acceptance, baseball. Personally, I found this novel a thought-provoking and moving story about life and relationships in a small town, and a very worthwhile read.
  

On the recommendation of a co-worker, I took home "My Boy Jack" (2007) from the library on DVD. Left it lay for a few days, and then decided to give it a try.
   Produced by the BBC, it contains the high quality that one expects from their productions. This was made for TV, but I was not familiar with it, had not heard of it at all.
   World War I practically decimated an entire generation of young men in Europe. This story, based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling, concerns Kipling's own family and the heartache the war brought to their lives. Kipling, already an established and well known author, lives with his family at Batemans, in the Sussex countryside. From the outset of hostilities in Europe, his almost 18-year-old son, John, known in the family as Jack, is anxious to join up and fight in Europe. Because of his myopia, Jack has been refused by the navy and the army. Jack, a young and somewhat naive sort, not only wants to fight for king and country, but he also longs to be out from under the "smothering" influence of his family, particularly his father. Rud, who serves on a British War Office think tank and is enthusiastic in his support for his only son's patriotic dream, eventually pulls strings to get "my boy Jack" into the Irish Guards. This is a nightmare for Jack's mother and his sister, Elsie.
   With Jack's departure from the family nest imminent, conflicts ebb and flow between the characters, and the film simply draws the viewer into their world and their emotional turmoil. Jack receives a short officer training course and is put in command of a platoon. He comes home to Batemans unexpectedly and reveals he is being shipped out to France, to his mother's horror. At the terrible battle of Loos, enormous losses are reported, and Jack is among the missing. His mother, Caroline, frustrated at not knowing the truth about her only son's fate, forces her husband to use his influence to help find out what happened to their son Jack, reminding Rud that he used his influence to send Jack to war; now he can use it to help find out where their son is.
   The parts are well cast all around, with Daniel Radcliffe giving a good picture of the uncertainties a young, inexperienced and enthusiastic soldier faced during that war; Kim Cattrall as Jack's American mother is marvelous, with her fierce determination and outwardly calm demeanor; Carey Mulligan's performance as Jack's understanding and supportive sister, Elsie, is quite touching, and David Haig gives an intense and imaginative portrayal as the celebrated Kipling, famous for the "Jungle Books," but who was also a father wracked by guilt who was ultimately forced to face the reality that war brings more death and destruction than glory.
   I found this a leisurely paced, unsentimental, entertaining and thought provoking depiction of the devastation caused to one particular family by World War I and their pain and anguish in trying to cope with their heartbreaking loss. The DVD includes interviews with Radcliffe, Cattrall, and Haig (who wrote the play the film is based upon and the screenplay), who provide interesting glimpses into their interpretations of their characters and the times, and how filming certain scenes at Batemans especially were very affecting to them. An excellent and underrated movie.