Wednesday, October 6, 2021

The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery

 

     BOOK REVIEW:   Present day, Sarah Ashby returns to her childhood home, determined to finally follow her dream of running the family business alongside her mother and grandmother. So when her mother, Rosemary, announces to her that Old Depot Grocery is closing, Sarah and her grandmother, Glory Ann, make a plan to save the store. But Rosemary has worked her entire life to make sure her daughter never follows in her footsteps. She has her reasons -- but she'll certainly never reveal the real one. 

     1965. Glory Ann confesses to her family that she's pregnant with her deceased fiance's baby. Pressured into a marriage of convenience with a shopkeeper to preserve her family's reputation, Glory Ann vows never to love again. But some promises are not as easily kept as she imagined. 

     This dual-time story from Amanda Cox deftly explores the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship, the way the secrets we keep shape our lives and the lives of others, and the healing power of telling the truth. 


     MY REVIEW:   This is Amanda Cox's second book and I enjoyed it as much as her first one, The Edge of Belonging. It travels fast through three generations, and I can't decide if it feels too fast and disconnected. It seems like it should, but is actually done well. While there could easily be a separate book for each woman, you get the essential glimpse of each of them, and they often overlap so you get two at once. But I would say Sarah's present is the most in depth glance we get. 

     The biggest take-away I got from this book is the power of secrets. There are certainly things that don't need to be said, but often we keep in things that hurt us, and sometimes our view of others. Rosemary carries years of hurt because of something she found of her mother's, but since she never brought it to her mother she has lived with a very wrong impression of her and it hindered their relationship drastically. In a roundabout way, this same secret was responsible for more of Rosemary's hurts, including a misjudgment of some of her mother's reactions to her over the years. She felt unloved and insufficient, but Glory Ann was only responding to the reminders of who she had lost. Both sides would have been so much better off if they'd been open and honest about it all. In the present, they all three have various degrees of secrets that keep them on different pages regarding the store's future. Finally, when everything comes to a head, they realize that: "You, me, Sarah--we've worked so hard to fix our brokenness ourselves and then hide the cracks we've left behind......It's high time all three of us come out of hiding and let the light come in." pg 309

     Another big take away is the hurtfulness of unforgiveness. Glory Ann's parents did not approve of her pregnancy, and they did what they could to hide it, and distance themselves from it--to the point of refusing to ever visit and even discouraging Glory Ann to come to them. So while they may have kept up their social image,  they had this dragging them down throughout their entire lives, not to mention having sacrificed their daughter and grand-daughter. On another side, we often suffer from refusing to forgive ourselves for things that aren't our fault at all. Again, years of hurt came because of undeserved self-accusation. 

     One last thing that I enjoyed about the book, is the devotion to community. Glory Ann's husband loves running Old Depot Grocery for the way it ministers to the community and brings them together. And now Sarah loves it just as much, and does what she can to somehow keep its legacy of ministry alive. The simple, generous, serving lifestyle that is portrayed is one that we need more of today. 

      I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes fiction with substance. 


 I received a copy of this book from REVELL and was not required to write a positive review.