Go Away Home by Carol Bodensteiner Review for Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tour!!

Publication Date: July 1, 2014Rising Sun Press
Formats: eBook, Paperback

Genre: Historical Fiction

READ AN EXCERPT.

Liddie Treadway grew up on a family farm where options for her future were marriage or teaching. Encouraged by suffragette rhetoric and her maiden aunt, Liddie is determined to avoid both and pursue a career. Her goal is within her grasp when her older sister’s abrupt departure threatens to keep her on the farm forever.

Once she is able to experience the world she’s dreamed of, Liddie is enthralled with her independence, a new-found passion for photography, and the man who teaches her. Yet, the family, friends, and life of her youth tug at her heart, and she must face the reality that life is not as simple, or the choices as clear-cut, as she once imagined.

GO AWAY HOME is a coming-of-age novel that explores the enduring themes of family, friendship, and love, as well as death and grief. This novel will resonate with anyone who’s confronted the conflict between dreams and reality and come to recognize that getting what you want can be a two-edged sword.

Praise for Go Away Home

“Go Away Home is … a tale of choices, dreams realized and rejected, and how values evolve … gently compelling and highly believable.” – D. Donovan, eBook Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

“Excellent characters and an extremely realistic plot … Go Away Home is the perfect story of coming home.” – Samantha Rivera, Readers’ Favorite reviewer

“… a heart-warming and heart-wrenching tale … a story that promises to fulfill what it is to be alive when one chooses the life one wants to live, despite the consequences” – Paulette Mahurin, author of The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap

“Go Away Home is a coming of age novel that is well-written, compelling, and endearing … a strong sense of place, excellent character development, and an engaging plot line.” – Kara Logsden, Iowa City Public Library

“Every life is a story, no matter how mundane it may appear on the surface, but it takes a writer like Carol Bodensteiner to draw a reader in and keep them turning the pages. Bodensteiner … writes characters with depth … she’s captured the era … with meticulous historical detail.“ – J. P. Lane, author of The Tangled Web.

About the Author

Carol Bodensteiner grew up in the heartland of the United States, and she continues to draw writing inspiration from the people, places, culture, and history of the area. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society. She is the author of Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Farm Girl, a memoir. Her essays have been published in several anthologies. Go Away Home is her first novel.

For more information please visit Carol Bodensteiner’s Website/Blog. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and LinkedIn. Sign up for Carol’s Newsletter.

My Thoughts

Go Away Home is a story that takes the reader back to just before, during and at the very end of World War II in the American Midwest. Liddie Treadway is a young girl at the beginning of the story and has dreams to leave the farm she lives on with her parents and sister Amelia. She just may be able to get away and move to a close town to apprentice with a seamstress. Her parents of course want her to settle down, marry and have children, which she does want someday but not for awhile. She is growing up in a time of the suffragette and with the help of her spinster aunt, they convince Liddie's parents to let her go and do the apprenticeship. In an unforseen tragedy in the Treadway household, Liddie's father dies as a result of an accident on the farm. Liddie sees her dreams go out the window because she knows she will be needed at home on the farm. 

Liddie's mother does eventually relent and Liddie is off to her apprenticeship. She learns a lot about making clothes and loves what she is doing until she meets a young man, Thomas Littman, who is a photographer. Liddie finds a passion she never knew she had and when Thomas proposes marriage to her she says yes and is eager to go to Paris to live with Thomas. There had been a young man, Joe, who had lived with the Treadway's for most of his life and helped out on the farm and became one of the family. Joe decides to move to Canada and take up farming on his own. Liddie keeps up a relationship with Joe by letters over a period of years. Joe comes home for a visit and Liddie is forced to rethink what she really wants out of life.

This is a story that will grab at your heartstrings, through tragedy and loss comes love and hopes for the future. Heartbreak for her and her family seem to break the family but ultimately in the end Liddie realizes that what she most wanted to do when a young girl is not what she wants in her heart. Go Away Home is written abut the daily struggles within a family during a tough time in our American history. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I am not sure if there is to be a sequel, but I think it would be interesting to see what happens to Liddie in the future. I highly recommend this book!

I received a copy for review and was not monetarily compensated for said review.

Go Away Home Blog Tour Schedule

Tuesday, July 8
Interview & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Thursday, July 10
Guest Post at Closed the Cover

Friday, July 11
Review & Giveaway at History From a Woman’s Perspective

Monday, July 14
Review at Svetlana’s Reads and Views
Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, July 15
Guest Post & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books

Thursday, July 17
Review at Jorie Loves a Story
Review & Giveaway at Broken Teepee

Friday, July 18
Review at A Bibliotaph’s Reviews
Guest Post at Jorie Loves a Story

Monday, July 21
Review at CelticLady’s Reviews

Tuesday, July 22
Spotlight & Giveaway at Caroline Wilson Writes

Thursday, July 24
Review & Giveaway at Closed the Cover

Friday, July 25
Tour Recap at Passages to the Past

Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/goawayhometour

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