ChickSpeak

As everyone frantically finishes up papers and crams for exams this next week, I’d like to suggest a little light reading for your after-Thanksgiving naps. I love this book so much I’d really like to suggest it to anyone, anytime. Set in the 1950’s Appalachian Mountains (my breathtaking and magic-inspiring home) Silas House’s The Coal Tattoo is the story of two sisters: their loves, their pasts, and their futures. Easter, the older sister, is a straight-laced church going girl whose mothering tendencies have become a necessity on her lonely mountain home.

Anneth, the younger sister, is 16, wild, and the most beautiful girl anyone in the county has ever seen. Inspired by the Cherokee grandmothers that came before them, these young women grapple with men, land, ghosts, and most of all, each other. As coal companies try to steal their ancestral home, Anneth runs off to Nashville to elope with her country-crooning beau.

Easter is left at home to deal with their dark family history, and the spirits that haunt her day and night. Through all the adventure, passion, magic, and loss, these women survive and even learn to thrive. I won’t give away the rest of the story, but I guarantee the experiences Anneth and Easter encounter will have you swept up and never wanting to put the novel down. Whether you’re more of the responsible big sister or that wild, red-dress wearing variety, any woman will enjoy this novel of romantic drama.