Jenny Wingfield's debut novel, The Homecoming of Samuel Lake, is a book that is guaranteed to keep you reading. I was taken in immediately by the intricacy of her characters and the plot that unfolds simply as you read. It is the tender story of the Moses clan - Willadee, Moses' daughter, and her husband, Samuel Lake, and their three children, that head back to Arkansas every June for the Moses family reunion. This year, the reunion starts out like any other but tragically takes a turn as they lose an important family member. What unfolds after the loss, becomes the major crux of the story - and it revolves around Swan, Willadee and Samuel's eleven year old daughter. She is a fabulous character that you will love from the start. I was drawn to her simple and yet very complex line of thinking - she is a wonderful eleven-year-old.
There were some tough parts to the novel - abuse of animals and children - but it wasn't drawn out so much that I couldn't get through it - and the end is redemptive. The novel left me in tears - I would highly recommend this one! I agree with this review:
“It’s all here. Faith. Honesty. Sin. Redemption. . . . Anyone who loves Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird will delight in Swan, the Lakes' eleven-year-old daughter.”—USA Today
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