Title: Calling Me Home
Author: Julie Kibler
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance
Book Synopsis:
Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler is a soaring debut interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship
Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It's a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow.
Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle's guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives.
Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son’s irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.
Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper—in a town where blacks weren’t allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.
Review:
Calling me home is a tale about two people who are both very different and the same. Different due to the color of their skin and the same in their love for one another which should be the only thing that matters. However the time and place this book is set does not make this an easy task. The characters were so real to me, it felt as though I had met them in real life, both present day and past characters. My heart went out to them, I laughed with them, wept with them, shared in the joys and pain of life alike with them. I loved the way the story was told, through essentially three different points of view two being in the present and one being the heart wrenching rendition of the past. The plot had me crying and throwing a tantrum over the injustice of it all, swooning over the love of soul mates and crying at the loss and pain of it all. This book made me feel new things, old feelings I rarely feel with a book, and just pure... I don't know... Everything.
Favorite Quotes:
"Miss Isabelle, meek and tame? Yeah, right. Full of pickles and vinegar most likely."
"I want to make you happy and take good care of you. I want to protect you and keep you safe. I don't want to hurt you. Not now, not tonight. Not ever."
"But may I suggest you post a notice on your door that says 'no bigots served. Of any color'?"
All in All:
This book was a read that touched me, was hard to out down and quickly rocketed up on my favorites list of book. If you want to laugh, love, cry, and just lose yourself in time, then you've found the book for you. A fantastic 5 star read! Hell, I will give it 6 stars! Absolute perfection!
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