All That We Carried by Erin Bartels

 

...it was clear that if God was real, he was after her.~from All That We Carried by Erin Bartels

Is life a series of random accidents, or is there a plan? If there is a god, why does God permit evil? Or does this god punish us? Or, lead us to be better? Are people basically self-centered, and therefor evil, and if so, can they change--be saved? And if people can change, can we forgive them?

Sisters Olivia and Melanie have been estranged since the deaths of their parents in a car accident. They were never similar, and their response to the tragedy sent them reeling in different directions. Melanie dropped out of school to settle the estate while Olivia returned to the University of Michigan. When Melanie forgave the man who caused the accident, Olivia was furious and cut her off.

As a lawyer in Lansing, MI, Olivia knows the evil side of humanity. She is controlled, repressed, and a perfectionist. Failure isn't in her vocabulary. When she isn't good at something, she gave it up.

Melanie's blog and YouTube videos turned into a career as a listener and life coach, helping people. Now its time to help herself and bridge the chasm between her sister and herself. She proposes an October hike in the Porcupine Mountains, a natural park in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where bear and cougar still roam, home to the remaining stand of hardwood and hemlock forest between the Rockies and the Appalachians.

Olivia plans the trip in detail; Melanie ignores the advice and is ill prepared. For anything can, and will, happen on the rugged, lonely trails.

Bartels not only references the Michigan landmarks that are the background to the action--she makes them come to life.

Trap Falls

In 2019, my brother and his girlfriend hiked in the Porcupines. They spent a year to prepare, every week hiking longer, harder, with backpacks and food. I knew these sisters were in for trouble from the start! Even Olivia, for all her preparedness, since she already was suffering from hip pain.

Mirror Lake

As the sisters hike the trails, I was able to look at the photographs my brother shared from their hike, shared in this post.

View from Escarpment Trail

Melanie has something she need to tell Olivia, but she needs to tear down the wall between them. The hike doesn't bring them closer. Olivia has shouldered responsibility for them both, her bossy big-sister side dominating. 

Mouth of Big Carp River

Little Carp River

One thing that surprised my brother and his companion was the elevations they had to climb, the rocks and roots. Luckily, they did not suffer any accidents. Unlike Bartel's sisters who end up fleeing a forest fire, resulting in an accident.

Crossing a Stream meant climbing a gorge

All That We Carried has so many wonderful aspects. It's almost a travel guide. It is an adventure story and a family drama. It is a psychological study of the burdens people take upon themselves. 

 

At its heart is the struggle with spiritual matters, the nature of God, the question of evil in the world, the randomness or providential nature of life, universal questions we ask as communities and individuals. 

It is the rare person who can embrace the mystery of life, avoiding anger, despair, or fear.

Overlooked Falls

I loved the Michigan references throughout the book! On the first page, I recognized "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod," the towers from the old Lansing electric plant whose blinking lights always told me I was almost home during our nine years in Lansing.

There is overt God-talk, and a mysterious character who shows up providentially. Melanie is challenged over her incorporation of all faiths into her belief system. But the changes in the characters arise out of their shared experience and conversations, their journey not over, but they have set foot on the right trail. 

I agree that this is Bartel's most mature work so far. 

I read and reviewed Bartel's previous novels We Hope for Better Things  and The Words Between Us.

I received an ARC from the publisher through LibraryThing and a galley from NetGalley. (I also pre-purchased a copy of the book.) My review is fair and unbiased.

All That We Carried: A Novel

by Erin Bartels

Pub Date: January 5, 2021 

ISBN: 9780800738365

soft cover $16.99 (USD)

"This subdued tale of learning to forgive is Bartels's best yet."--Publishers Weekly

Ten years ago, sisters Olivia and Melanie Greene were on a backcountry hiking trip when their parents were in a fatal car accident. Over the years, they grew apart, each coping with the loss in her own way. Olivia plunged herself into law school, work, and a materialist view of the world--what you see is what you get, and that's all you get. Melanie dropped out of college and developed an online life-coaching business around her cafeteria-style spirituality--a little of this, a little of that, whatever makes you happy.

Now, at Melanie's insistence (and against Olivia's better judgment), they are embarking on a hike in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In this remote wilderness they'll face their deepest fears, question their most dearly held beliefs, and begin to see that perhaps the best way to move forward is the one way they had never considered.

Michigan Notable Book Award winner Erin Bartels draws from personal experience hiking backcountry trails with her sister to bring you a story about the complexities of grief, faith, and sisterhood.

Manido Falls

Manabezho Falls

About the author

ERIN BARTELS is the award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things—a 2020 Michigan Notable Book, winner of the 2020 Star Award from the Women’s Fiction Writers Association in both the debut and general fiction categories, and a 2019 Christy Award finalist—The Words between Us—a 2020 Christy Award finalist—and All That We Carried (coming January 2021). Her short story “This Elegant Ruin” was a finalist in The Saturday Evening Post 2014 Great American Fiction Contest. Her poems have been published by The Lyric and The East Lansing Poetry Attack. A member of the Capital City Writers Association and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, she is former features editor of WFWA’s Write On! magazine and current director of the annual WFWA Writers Retreat in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Erin lives in the beautiful, water-defined state of Michigan where she is never more than a ninety minute drive from one of the Great Lakes or six miles from an inland lake, river, or stream. She grew up in the Bay City area waiting for freighters and sailboats at drawbridges and watching the best 4th of July fireworks displays in the nation. She spent her college and young married years in Grand Rapids feeling decidedly not-Dutch. She currently lives with her husband and son in Lansing, nestled somewhere between angry protesters on the Capitol lawn and couch-burning frat boys at Michigan State University. And yet, she claims it is really quite peaceful.

Visit the author's website at https://erinbartels.com/

Greenstone Falls

Covid-19 Life: Finishing Quilts, TBR, Beautiful Nature

Maybe it's the feel of mortality breathing down my neck, but I am focused on finishing all those 'UFOs' in my sewing room--Unfinished Objects, for the uninitiated.

Finishing The Great Gatsby quilt was major. I started it years ago! I hand quilted it.

The blocks are taken from 1924 advertisements and represent scenes from the book.

I was lucky to snag  fabrics from the Great Gatsby fabrics line.

 My sewing room is a creative mess of works in progress.

I am putting together Row by Row blocks from years ago. Quilt shops designed and sold these rows for quilters to collect. These are all Michigan lake scenes.

I am also working on a pattern I bought when I was first quilting! The Mountain Mist Water Lilies pattern! Lots of repetitious hand applique. I love it. There are eight blocks like those below. Then borders of lily pads and flowers!

Books in the mail include the Book Club Cookbook win The Second Home by Christina Clancy, pictured with a completed Row.

And three fantastic art quilt books from Schiffer Publishing! Look for the reviews in the coming weeks.

New galleys on my shelf include:

• Maniac: The Bath School Murder and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer by Harold Schechter, which occured in Michigan
• The View from Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe by Jeanne E. Abrams
• Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight by Julia Sweig

I have been coloring in my birthday books.

Sunny goes to 'day camp' three days a week. She loves playing with the dogs. Since my son and his partner are both working from home, it's hard for her to understand they have to ignore her demands to play during working hours.

I enjoy the beauty I see around me. The hawk circling on the updraft above the houses. The flowers I see on my walks. The painted clouds of sunset.

 Even the weeds in the grass are beautiful.

My brother went to Tawas Point a few weekends ago and reported record high lake levels. The year my family spent a week there lake levels were at a record low!

Note the lighthouse in the background.

Here are flowers my brother has seen on his walks in the woods.

And, here is my brother. His birthday is coming in a few weeks. 

Stay safe, out there. Find your bliss in this broken world.

The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne

After her breakout debut The Marsh King's Daughter, Michigan writer Karen Dionne returns with another psychological suspense novel set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

The Wicked Sister is a dark fairy tale. The Cunningham Family has retreated to the deep woods after their eldest daughter Diana was identified with a mental deviancy. The youngest daughter Rachel adores her big sis and only playmate. But the games Diana directs cross the border into her sick world.

Their parents are found dead and after several weeks missing, eleven-year-old Rachel returns certain she murdered them. She checks herself into an institution. Year later, a newspaper article comes into her hands with proof of her innocence and she checks herself out and journeys back to the cabin in the woods, seeking the truth.

Now she is leery of her older sister, living with their mother's aunt who was always easily manipulated.

Because with a clarity that is almost frightening, suddenly, I remember everything.~from The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne

The story is told in two voices by the mother and the youngest daughter, the mother's insights sharing a backstory unknown by Rachel.

It's quite a thrill ride, as dark as a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Michigan's isolated woodlands is the vivid backdrop, an environment of deep beauty and danger. Complicated family relationships are not always what they seem.

The novel shares elements of The Marsh King's Daughter in setting and with a young woman whose life is in danger.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through Edelweiss. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Wicked Sister
by Karen Dionne
G.P. Putnam's Sons
On Sale Date: August 4, 2020
ISBN 9780735213036, 0735213038
Hardcover $27.00 USD, $36.00 CAD

from the publisher: 

She thought she’d buried her past. But what if it’s been hunting her this whole time. 

From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Marsh King’s Daughter comes a startling novel of psychological suspense as two generations of sisters try to unravel their tangled relationships between nature and nurture, guilt and betrayal, love and evil.
You have been cut off from society for fifteen years, shut away in a mental hospital in self-imposed exile as punishment for the terrible thing you did when you were a child. 

But what if nothing about your past is as it seems?
And if you didn’t accidentally shoot and kill your mother, then whoever did is still out there. Waiting for you. 

For a decade and a half, Rachel Cunningham has chosen to lock herself away in a psychiatric facility, tortured by gaps in her memory and the certainty that she is responsible for her parents’ deaths. But when she learns new details about their murders, Rachel returns, in a quest for answers, to the place where she once felt safest: her family’s sprawling log cabin in the remote forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, 

As Rachel begins to uncover what really happened on the day her parents were murdered, she learns—as her mother did years earlier—that home can be a place of unspeakable evil, and that the bond she shares with her sister might be the most poisonous of all.

Karen Dionne

about the author:

Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 international bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter, a psychological suspense novel set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the U.S. and in 25 other languages. Her next psychological suspense novel, The Wicked Sister, will publish August 4, 2020. 

Karen has been active in the writing community for over twenty years. She co-founded the online writers community Backspace, organized the Backspace Writers Conferences in New York and the Salt Cay, Bahamas Writers Retreat, and served on the board of directors of the International Thriller Writers. 

Karen enjoys nature photography and lives with her husband in Detroit’s northern suburbs.

Covid-19 Life: News, Books, Quilts

That is the grandpuppy, Sunny, sporting a bandana I made for her and her fur sister Ellie, plus I made matching masks for their adoring parents. Sunny was reunited with her foster mom and fur friend on a visit to a fundraiser for Safe Harbor Animal Rescue.

 Ellie stayed with us that day.

Sunny and Ellie's human mom has a birthday today! My son told me that she loves succulents and wanted a succulent pillow that was no longer available. I didn't have a pattern, but tried my hand at making one. I also found this adorable Baby Cactus quilt pattern to make. It is hand appliqued and machine quilted on my new Bernina 570QE.

I found this adorable fabric for the backing!

I am nearly finished hand quilting the Great Gatsby quilt.

I was shocked to hear from Amazon that I was made an Amazon Vine voice! Such an honor! I thank my review readers for liking my reviews!

Books I won to come from the Book Club Cookbook:

• The Second Home by Christina Clancy
• The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner

Also waiting on this giveaway from Goodreads

• The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness by Emily Anthes

New egalleys received to be read:

• Good Blood by Julian Guthrie from the BookExpo PW Galley Grab
• Jack by Marilynne Robinson

Reading Now:

• The Violence Inside by Chris Murphy
• The Inheritors by Asako Serizawa
• His Truth is Marching On by Jon Meacham
• Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn, J.D. during WWII

Waiting on my TBR Shelf

• Superman is Not Coming by Erin Brockovich
• The Writer's Library by Nancy Pearl
• JFK by Fredrik Logevall
• Catching the Wind by Neal Gabler, a biography of Robert F. Kennedy
• Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman, from her Practical Magic series
• Missionaries by Phil Klay about America's Forever Wars
• Eleanor, a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt by David Machaelis
• The Last American Aristocrat by David S. Brown
• Nick by Michael Farris Smith, imagines Nick Carraway at war

• Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz from Bookish First
• Moss by Klaus Modick from LibraryThing

My husband bought a new bread machine. It makes huge loaves, so he removes the dough for the second rising and baking.

After a long drought, Michigan has been getting rain. The garden is looking wonderful.

My brother made me a bee house.

My brother and his girlfriend's camping trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan must have been wonderful, judging by their photographs. Below is Copper Harbor Lighthouse, photo by Martha Kovich.

 She found this art installation.

Returning home, they still enjoy weekend jaunts. Below is the Clinton River in Macomb County, Michigan.

We haven't traveled, but enjoy the views from our own front yard.

I had a scary occurrence and went to the ER, another scary experience in itself. I am fine, the doctor tweaked my medications and I will get my ears checked out. It's good to know that coming up to my sixty-eighth birthday that my heart is in good health.

Stay safe out there. Wear a mask. Avoid crowds. Find the beauty around you.