The Last Letter- Kathleen Shoop

If your parents pulled up stakes from a real city and moved to the dry, dusty prairie, to live off the land, would you be able to forgive them and make your own happiness? What if you had no idea what was really going on?

Kathleen Shoop has written a book full of suffering and sacrifice, a mother/daughter story that reminds us that though we think we know our parents, we don't know everything.

Katherine Arthur's mother is dying, and she ends up on her daughters doorstep, hoping for compassion and forgiveness.

Jeanie Arthur followed her dreamer husband, Frank into the prairie, unprepared, only to live in a dugout, fighting bugs, blizzards, heat, and dust, trying to make a home. Driven nearly mad by the hardships she was forced to endure, with one final betrayal, she resorted to an unspeakable act, in order to save her family.

Her children were forced to endure the same hardships, and more. We assume children are more resilient. They aren't.

For seventeen years, Katherine has been so angry at her mother, she thought she would never forgive her, but a yellowed letter makes it all clear. Will it be too late when she learns the truth? Can she face the past she has worked so hard to forget?

Though I had a really hard time getting into this book, the final result was worth the effort. The voices are true and the story is as compelling as nonfiction. I could never have been a prairie woman, and I have such admiration for even fictional characters who can. This is a great story of suffering, sacrifice, and a mothers love.

I received this book from BookSparks PR as part of a blog tour, for review.Thank you!