Vicki LaneBesprekingen

Like those of Sharyn McCrumb, Deborah Grabien, Phillip DePoy and Erin Hart, Vicki Lane's books mix folklore and old crimes with contemporary mystery. In The Day of Small Things, Lane steps aside from her Elizabeth Goodweather series to explore the history of Miss Birdie, a character who has had a part to play in some of the previous books. Birdie -- who has had several different names in her long life -- richly deserved her own book.

Readers looking for a fast-paced, thrill-a-minute story will not find it here. This is a book to get lost in -- lost in another time, another place, another world. It's been clear throughout the series that Miss Birdie is something more than a kindly old country neighbor, and through this book we find just how much more she is.

The tension between old ways and new ways is a major theme in The Day of Small Things . And if you think of Appalachian forms of Christianity snake-handling for example as "old ways " you may be surprised when Miss Birdie goes back to still older ways to help her late husband's kinfolk in their time of crisis. As I said above readers who just want action and detection may not enjoy this book. There is not a lot of mystery in the detection sense but there is plenty in the spiritual sense. I loved spending these days with Miss Birdie and I know too that having read book: The Day of Small Things will deepen my appreciation for Lane's next book in the Elizabeth Goodweather series. Very highly recommended.

Recent discussions on the DorothyL list caused me to order this book before I started my State Mystery Project. It takes place in North Carolina and I couldn't wait that long to read it; plus, having already read books by Sharyn McCrumb and Phillip DePoy, I'm familiar enough (vicariously) with the western NC mountains that, when I get to the state in my project, I'll be looking for something different, maybe coastal or the Research Triangle. Nevertheless, I hope Vicki Lane writes many more books about Elizabeth Goodweather and the area in which she lives.

SIGNS IN THE BLOOD has some structural similarities to Sharyn McCrumb's GHOST RIDERS, which I read a short time back. Both alternate a modern story with a tale from the mountain past, told in the first person. I think Ms. Lane's is by far the better book. For one thing, the present-day story in SIGNS IN THE BLOOD is a true mystery and not ashamed to be one, whereas that in Ms. McCrumb's book rambles from character to character and never seems to go anywhere either as a mystery or a novel. The story from the past in Ms. Lane's book also brings to mind the tales in Deborah Grabien's Haunted Ballad series, in that we first hear a garbled version (or versions) of the story and, bit by bit, learn the truth.
I don't mean by these comparisons to suggest that Ms. Lane's book is other than original -- quite the contrary. She has written an excellent book -- setting, characters and plot are all first-rate.

Ms. Lane's protagonist, Elizabeth Goodweather, is a complicated character and a person I'd love to know in real life. As a relative newcomer to the mountains, she has made friends with the local people and learned much from them while maintaining her own sense of who she is. When her friend Birdie's "slow" son Cletus disappears while out hunting ginseng, Elizabeth tries to help find him. When Cletus's body is found in a river, and Birdie can't believe his death was an accident as the Sheriff believes, Elizabeth begins to investigate in earnest. Her investigation leads her to some interesting and rather scary places -- to services at a snake-handling church where she encounters a prophetess with messages for her, to a "New Age" community with a sinister feel, to a group of right-wing militiamen and to a revival preacher who's also an "Outsider artist."
It's been five years since Elizabeth's husband was killed in the crash of a private plane. Only now has she really begun to allow herself to grieve for him, and perhaps because of that, she is also allowing herself to be a bit interested in men again. One of them is the preacher at the snake-handling church, to whom she is strangely attracted in spite of their having almost nothing in common; the other is an old friend of her husband's, a policeman, who shows up in nearby Asheville and wants to renew their acquaintance. When Elizabeth is the recipient of various threatening gestures, suspicion falls on both men. Indeed, there is plenty of suspicion to go around and red herrings abound. The thrilling denouement kept me up well past my bedtime.

SIGNS IN THE BLOOD is a bit longer than most mystery novels, but there was not a page I would willingly have had left out. I'm rating it five stars/excellent and highly recommend it.

When I first picked up this book I was expecting some large explosive battle between good and evil at the end of the book. Needless to say, this was not at all what I was expecting. While the book was good, it was a bit too slow for me. Even the ending - which was not what I expected - was not too great. While I didn't hate the book, it started to bore me after a while. I kept reading because I was expecting something different and it just never got to where I expected it to go.

While I found this book engaging, the characters well developed and the setting, which is in the region where I live, I didn't love it. I didn't entirely buy into the plot or the characters

First Line: I still see the bed-- its wide white expanse floating like a snowy island on the deep pearly carpet-- the creamy tufted silk coverlet neatly folded back-- the soft heaped pillows, their pale lace soaked and stiff with her blood.

The Appalachian Mountains to the west of Asheville, North Carolina, are a mix of old and new: people who have lived there for generations, newcomers who've moved in, artists, New Age devotees, old farms, and new businesses. Over twenty years ago, Elizabeth Goodweather and her husband bought Full Circle Farm, eventually turning it into an organic herb and flower farm. Elizabeth moves easily between the worlds of Asheville and the old-timers who live back in their hollows. She's been a widow for six years, and only recently has she found her interest piqued in another man.

Although the farm takes most of her time, Elizabeth finds the ladies at the library to be very persuasive. Before she knows what's happening, she's agreed to round up quilts for an exhibit, and she finds the history behind one of them to be fascinating. At the same time, her youngest daughter talks her into attending performance art done by three young neighbors who live across the road from Full Circle Farm. When one of the young artists is murdered, Elizabeth finds herself caught between two mysteries: the true story behind a beautiful quilt-- and of murder.

Once again I've fallen under the spell of the world and of the characters that Vicki Lane has created. Elizabeth's the type of character I could easily call friend, and I like to "watch" her do her chores around the farm. She's level-headed, intelligent, kind, and not prone to being a clothes horse. And any time Elizabeth wants to visit octogenarian Miss Birdie on her nearby farm, I'd definitely want to tag along. Miss Birdie may be an old mountain woman, but there's a lot about her that reminds me of those sharp-as-a-tack eightysomethings I grew up amongst in small town central Illinois.

Art's Blood fully explores the corrosive theme of jealousy with two major plot lines. One story takes place in the 1930s and focuses on the people involved in the making of a wonderful quilt. Through journal entries written by one of the survivors of those days, we see how the seeds of disaster were planted.

The second plot line involves Kyra, a beautiful young artist living across the road from Full Circle Farm. Traumatized as a child, she is very fragile, very mercurial-- and her family is very protective of her. Elizabeth's nephew, Ben, becomes infatuated with Kyra, as Elizabeth's daughter, Laurel, draws her mother deeper into the art world in Asheville. As the story progresses, the two threads begin to weave together into a tale that is tragic, haunting, deadly.... Nothing good ever comes of jealousy.

If you enjoy reading books that give you a chance to become well acquainted with the setting, the history, and an excellent cast of characters as well as telling tales that persuade you to keep reading into the wee hours of the morning, there's only one thing you can do: pick up a Full Circle Farm mystery by Vicki Lane.½

I have been waiting for Under The Skin since I finished the last page of In A Dark Season. And it was worth the wait! I have read the entire Elizabeth Goodweather series and delight in Vicki Lane’s wordsmithing. Perhaps another reason I’m such a devoted fan of hers is the fact that she writes about our beautiful Appalachian Mountains with all the exquisite descriptions and extraordinary dialects western North Carolina can boast. Her characters come to life on the page and instantly endear, especiallly Miss Birdie, the “witchy woman”.
As Elizabeth begins to plan her wedding to Phillip Hawkins, her sister Gloria arrives to set other wheels in motion and turn the household upside down. Phillip, a detective and an old friend of Elizabeth’s deceased husband, Sam, tries to determine if Gloria is really running from her ex-husband or vying for her sister’s attention.
Gloria and Elizabeth attend a séance in Hot Springs, and Gloria thinks she’s found her long-lost child. Later events turn ugly in a beauty salon in Asheville, and Elizabeth takes action before Phillip can get there.
Blue Ridge Mountains, Hot Springs, Asheville, folklore, colorful characters, a good mystery.
What’s not to love? Lane keeps me riveted in action, memorable characters, and mountain lore from the beginning to the end. Now I’m ready for the next one.

First Line: On the evening of the third day of labor, the woman's screams filled the little cabin, escaping through the open door to tangle themselves in the dark hemlocks that mourned and drooped above the house.

When life hands them lemons, some people are incapable of making lemonade. Death, war, poverty, sickness, children marrying and moving away... everything seems to be conspiring against Miz Fronie up in Dark Holler. She has become a bitter and twisted human being. When her last child, a little girl, is born, she calls the baby Least and leads everyone in the area to believe that the child isn't right in the head. If no one else wants her, Least will have to stay in Dark Holler with her mother.

Least's first glimpse of salvation is when Grandma Beck comes to live with them. Grandma Beck is crippled with arthritis, but she can help Least make rugs, and she can teach Least all she knows about the stories, the healing and the magic of their ancestors, the Cherokee. Least can see things that no one else can, and Grandma Beck brings her the balm of understanding what's happening to her.

A few years later, Least finds herself making a choice between her heritage and a young man who is a devout Christian. She makes him promises and never looks back-- until she is an old woman and an evil man has put an innocent young boy in mortal danger.

When Vicki Lane asked if I'd like to read a galley of her latest book, at first I was embarrassed. I'd read her first Elizabeth Goodweather mystery, Signs in the Blood, and really enjoyed it; however, like so many other mystery series I've started, I have yet to further my acquaintance with Ms. Goodweather. When Vicki told me that the book was about my favorite character, Miss Birdie, and not another book in the Goodweather series, I jumped at the chance to read The Day of Small Things.

I am so glad I did. Like another talented author who writes about Appalachia with love and lyricism, Lane brings the area and the people to life. I don't think there was a single character who did not engage my emotions in some way. To watch Least grow into Miss Birdie over the span of time was a privilege, and to see two old ladies forget their years and step out to battle for what's right was, quite simply, a joy.

If, like me, you are a fan of Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad novels and you'd like to read more quality fiction set in Appalachia that features wonderful characters-- by all means, read Vicki Lane. You won't regret it!½