Friend Friday

I'll admit, it's a stretch to use the word "friend" for people I've never even met. Yet, when someone writes a book that I connect with, how can I consider them anything but a friend?

Case in point: I've never met Amy Timberlake but she clearly shares my passion for historical fiction so I know we'd have a great time over a cup of coffee.

I was introduced to her book, One Came Home, at ALA midwinter when my own editor pressed it on me during a stop at the booth. And who could resist the title's tagline? "A sister lost. A body found. The truth buried." I couldn't.

There was a feel of True Grit to this book, in that a young girl takes it upon herself to seek justice and truth. And the backdrop of the carrier pigeon frenzy of the 1890s brought to mind Jerry Spinelli's powerful, Wringer. And Amy Timberlake is a wizard with character development, reminding me very much of Linda Urban, and especially A Crooked Kind of Perfect.

Despite those elements of similarities, this book is its own unique self. Georgie is stubborn and naive--tattling on her sister for an illicit kiss -- and yet she's got more savvy than the adults in the family who seem to accept the fact that simply because a body is wearing her sister's dress, it is her sister.

Georgie's quest to find out the truth about her sister is grueling and dangerous and not exactly satisfying. Like those pigeons that trigger the story's events, she learns that life can be messy. But, we leave Georgie celebrating that mess, not undone by it.