West Virginia has never been a place on my "to-visit" list. I'm sure everyone can say they've heard some joke or another regarding the state, and while I can appreciate that it has its beauty (according to pictures I've seen), it's just always seemed to me a place where sadness and depression would be.

While Tender Graces doesn't debunk that thought of mine, necessarily, it also provides perspective and sheds light on it. In spite of the sadness and depression (which is present everywhere), there's beauty and hope and magic in that place - and that's what the main character, Virginia Kate, finds through this story.

Virginia Kate's mother is beautiful - too beautiful for her own good. And as the years pass, Virginia Kate and her brothers watch their parents marriage crumble and new people are introduced to their lives, including a step-mama. And folks, let me just say I was prepared to hate this woman right along with Virginia Kate - but Rebeckah became, by far, the most dynamic, amazing character in the book for me.

Kathryn Magendie provides beautiful, heart-wrenching emotions through the characters in this book that had me weeping along with them and hoping against hope that everything would turn out okay for them. Set this against a backdrop of beauty, described by some beautiful writing, and it's a southern story that embodies the very essence of a state that is poorly represented by most print that I've read. ( )

Tender Graces is a beautifully written coming of age tale set in the mountains of West Virginia and steamy Louisiana. Virginia Kate is a memorable character and narrator, returning to her childhood home and her memories to come to terms with the death of her mother. The little girl who refused to cry and looked to the spirit of her grandmother for love and support amidst the turmoil of life with alcoholic, unstable parents is unforgettable, as are many of the characters in the story. I read the book in two days and wish there were more to read. Kathryn Magendie has made this story real by it's telling, the loss and gain and mystery of our lives, to use her words. I look forward to reading her next book. ( )

Virginia Kate has gone home to West Virginia after her estranged mother dies. Her brothers don't go with her so she is alone in the house to face her memories of a difficult childhood and an alcoholic mother alternately loving and dismissive. As Virginia Kate goes through the house, avoiding her mother's room, she uncovers mementoes that trigger her reminiscences, both good and bad. Virginia Kate, a child of the West Virginia mountains, is the only daughter of a damaged mother and a Peter Pan father still tied to his mother's apron strings. Mother Katie escaped her own abusive father by marrying but she couldn't escape the emotional scars of her upbringing nor the devastating loss of her own mother in a house fire. Crippled by alcohol and utterly dependent on her beauty to give her life meaning, she has few emotional reserves with which to care for her children. Father Frederick is a philanderer who drinks too much and can't give up the carefree life he so desires despite being married with children. And when his mother summons him home from West Virginia, he leaves his contentious wife and sad children behind. And so life continues on for Virginia Kate and her brothers, difficult and yet somehow rooted in the mountain hollow community. Until her father shows up periodically and takes a child at a time home to Louisiana with him to live, where their existence will start to take on a semblence of normalcy thanks to stepmother Rebekha.

This novel, with its whispering narration and swirl of emotion, is beautifully rendered. Much of the narration here takes place in Virginia Kate's past although her current day self does comment several times throughout the story, as well as framing her childhood story. The characters are fully rounded and while their emotional damage to themselves and each other is great, it feels natural given their lives and what they have endured and tried (often failing) to overcome. Virginia Kate, as the main character, is sympathetic and the reader roots for her to recognize the love she is given freely and the reasons why the love she is so desperate for only comes in ways that make it hard to recognize. The theme of home and family and belonging are rife throughout the novel and they tie everything together, as home and family should, even if they sometimes do it in surprising ways here. There is some sort of closure at the end of the novel but a sequel is coming out this year and if it is as beautiful and poetic as this one, it will be a treat indeed. ( )

I am on the fence with this book. While I enjoyed the characters, I found the story to be one that has been done before. I am not sure if I liked this book or not, which I realize is a very strange statement, but for some reason I cannot come to any conclusion as to whether or not the book was worth my time. At times I was like hurry up and end and at other times I thought it wasn't too bad. ( )

My Early Reviewers' copy was a spiral bound "un-copyedited manuscript," which is another case of don't judge a book by its cover! This book was much better than I thought it would be.

The characterizations and descriptions of setting are excellent. I could really relate to the main character, Virginia Kate, as it was clear from the chapter headings and descriptive details that we were born about the same year. The author's poetic images of the West Virginia and Louisiana settings really made this reader feel as if she was there.

Virginia Kate is the middle of three children of dysfunctional parents from dysfunctional families. Her mama's*-boy father quotes Shakespeare, womanizes, and drinks too much. Her narcissistic mother had an abusive dad and drinks even more. Yet even these characters had other sides that were loving and appealing, as did Rebekha, the stepmother you initially want to hate but grow to love as Virginia Kate did. (*aka Mee Maw - and what a caricature of the overbearing mother/mother-in-law/grandmother!)

The story is told mostly in flashback/retrospect from many years later when Virginia Kate returns to her original West Virginia home just after her mother's death, after growing up in Louisiana. It's a heartbreaking story of a family breaking up one piece at a time, even though a new family grows out of it. I couldn't help but feel some sympathy for Virginia Kate's mother and some anger at the latter's conniving mother-in-law and weak husband.

The only problem I had at all with the book was the present-day chapters being written in present tense. I hope that was changed in the final published version of the book; I think it would have been better for the whole book to be written in past tense. ( )