52 in 52 Week 11: Song of Years by Bess Streeter Aldrich

 I have been reading this book since early December, and I am a VERY quick reader! I LOVED the last Bess Streeter Aldrich story that I read, Rim of the Prairie. That is a very tight story with a page turning plot. This was slow and needed editing! It wasn't that it was a bad story, it just stretched over ten years, and it felt like 1,000!



I don't want this to turn anyone off because most of her stories are very sweet and good. 


Here is what this one was about:

Song of Years (1939) The state of Iowa was still young and wild when Wayne Lockwood came to it from New England in 1851. He claimed a quarter-section about a hundred miles west of Dubuque and quickly came to appreciate his widely scattered neighbors, like Jeremiah Martin, whose seven daughters would have chased the gloom from any bachelor's heart. Sabina, Emily, Celia, Melinda, Phoebe Lou, Jeannie, and Suzanne are timeless in their appeal -- to spirited to be preoccupied with sermons, sickness, or sudden death. However, the feasts, weddings, and holiday celebrations in Song of Years are shadowed by all the rigors and perils of frontier living. This novel captures the period in Iowa's history of Indian scares and county-seat wars, as well as the political climate preceding the Civil War. Mrs. Aldrich based this novel largely on her grandfather's adventures in Iowa and the stories she heard as a child. 

What is sad is that this is a later book. It was almost like a step backward in her writing. It really was so incredibly painful to get through. 


The good news is that I am finally done. I only have one more book until I have read all the Book Babes books I missed over the 11 years.