Comfort Read
Although Jane Kirkpatrick is definitely on my author spotlight list, after finishing her latest book, ‘Across the Crying Sands’, I just had to write about it now. My earliest memory of reading one of her books was when my family and I were moving from Northern California to the Pacific Northwest, traveling in an RV. Maybe twenty years ago? I recall feeling a little like the characters in her book who were traveling across the country, the new frontier, looking to make something of their lives in a new place, starting over with ambition and hope in their hearts and minds. This book takes place in the late 1880s and tells the story of a young woman, Mary Gerritse (née Edwards) who meets and marries John Gerritse. He is a kind and loving, somewhat ‘traditional’male of the times. Which is to say he, like most of them, think the place for women is in the home tending to child rearing, cooking, sewing, and taking care of them. I’m tempted to say these were easier, simpler times fo...