Debut BLOODROOT Has Strong Start
Last season was about big-name authors; this one is about debuts, so we’re keeping our eyes out for titles that may hit (remember; The Help came out on 2/10 last year; we first highlighted it in a post on 2/12; it debuted on the 3/29 NYT Fiction bestseller list)
This week, Entertainment Weekly goes nuts for the debut Bloodroot by Amy Greene,
Some novels are so powerful, so magical in their sweep and voice, that they leave you feeling drugged. Close the pages and the people in them keep right on talking to you. Amy Greene’s debut novel, Bloodroot, set in the bone-poor hollows of the eastern Tennessee mountains, is such a book.
Needless to say, they give it an unqualified A.
The prepub reviews, however, were divided.
Booklist — starred review — “With a style as elegant as southern novelist Lee Smiths and a story as affecting as The Color Purple, this debut offers stirring testimony to the resilience of the human spirit.”
Kirkus — “…bound to be a big hit”
Library Journal — “Fans of Appalachian culture and/or family chronicles may find something to take pleasure in here; casual popular fiction readers should likely pass.”
PW — “Despite a few vivid moments, this uneven debut, a four-generation Appalachian family epic, loses sight of the intriguing mythology it lays out early on.”
Location: Setting is the author’s native Tennessee Smoky Mountains.
It’s an Indie Next pick for January. Bookseller Janel Feierabend from Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA describes it;
The isolated Appalachian setting in Bloodroot is a powerful, realistic, and truly American stage on which basic human traits emerge under the heavy hand of hardship and poverty. This multi-generational story is a must-read for those who wish to expand their horizons, experience a part of our country often ignored, and face challenges head-on through honest and sparse prose. I’m still reeling.
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UNABR Simultaneous Audio: Random Audio; 9780307713230; $40
eBook available from OverDrive