A One Nighter!

One Came Home by Amy Timberlake
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I highly recommend One Came Home to the young adult and adult reader. I started and finished this book in one night. I could not stand to not know the ending! Granted I had to read through the end really fast, since I had to get up at 5:15 am(!) and go to work the next morning, but I did it. Since a book is just a friend to visit over and over again, it was no problem to go back and read through it at a leisurely pace a few days later.

I so admire authors and their imaginations. This author, Amy Timberlake, got her inspiration for this story from some actual events that occurred in 1871. She tells you more about these events in the afterward of the book (in a way that the younger reader can easily understand). So, from a smidgeon, really of history, she crafted a tale of growing up, of heartache, of mystery. I was so drawn in!

Our protagonist, Georgie, is 13. She's just buried her sister Agatha, she can't believe she's dead. How can this be so? In her denial, she decides to revisit the location they found her body. Her neighbor, and her sister's old boyfriend, Billy, goes with her. And thus the adventure begins.

In addition to writing a story you can get lost in, I really enjoyed some of the author's prose. Here are some snippets:

"But I was learning that knowing things does not mean you understand them."

"A thousand tiny hopes swarmed over me like a cloud of gnats."

"The sun burned behind the leaves like a white-hot coin."

and this really thought provoking statement:

"I hadn't appreciated before when I'd been there. But now before was where I wanted to be, before was where I wanted to live."

Don't take my word for it. Hop over to Amazon where you can read the first chapter, and see if you can resist reading the rest!

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