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Self-Sacrifice on Multiple Levels
Under the Grapevine is the second book in your riveting family saga, The Women of Campbell County. What were some new ideas you wanted to introduce in this book that were different from book one?
I wanted the reader to know that love is powerful and can overcome deceit and hatred. Despite having a wretched mother, the Bailey children develop into adults, minimally scathed, due to the nurturing of Tabs’ love.
What were some challenges you set for yourself as a writer with this book?
My biggest challenge writing Under the Grapevine was the transition from Olive to Harriett as the main character. It’s difficult for Olive’s impudence to play second chair.
What were some obstacles in the story that you felt were important to defining your characters?
Life during the first half of the last century is often depicted as a simpler lifestyle. I wanted to remind my readers that living through the Great Depression and WWII was complicated and stressful, resulting in self-sacrifice on multiple levels.
What can readers expect in the next book in The Women of Campbell County series?
The next book in The Women of Campbell County series revolves around Harriett coming into her own, garnering the education her mother coveted, and succeeding as a corporate woman. In contrast, it also follows her husband Eddy’s journey after being drafted into the Army. Unlike the first two books which cover several decades, Hill House Divided, takes place over three years, 1950 to 1953.
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Western Pennsylvania, 1925. Olive Westchester brims with bitter, unrealized potential. Refusing to visit her father’s deathbed and forgive him for her beloved brother’s passing, she turns her attention to completing the schooling she always coveted. But her anticipation erupts into rage when a fifth unplanned pregnancy torpedoes her longed-for future.
As the years pass and America suffers from the Great Depression, Olive painfully faces shattered dreams of reaching medical school and independence. And when her youngest daughter inherits her smarts and seizes an opportunity for higher education, Olive’s unhappiness threatens to swallow her whole.
Will she ever find the success and achievement she so desperately craves?
Under the Grapevine is the gripping second book in The Women of Campbell County: Family Saga women’s fiction series. If you like deeply drawn characters, historical authenticity, and true-life dilemmas, then you’ll love S. Lee Fisher’s emotional journey.
Buy Under the Grapevine to struggle for a brighter tomorrow today!
Under the Grapevine
![Under the Grapevine: The Women of Campbell County by [S. Lee Fisher]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511Kv8EMS4L.jpg)
Under the Grapevine is the second in The Women of Campbell County series by author S Lee Fisher. Olive Westchester is a married woman with children of her own and a loving husband, all of whom she treats badly. Having lost all her youthful chances, she is locked in her own misery which has festered over the years to create a bitter, angry woman. She treats everyone around her with rude contempt, keeps secrets from her family for her own benefit and only really engages with them when she needs a skivvy.
The book opens after the First World War and covers the years of the Great Depression and the Second World War with vivid detail. Although the characters are affected by these tumultuous events I wanted to dive deeper into their emotional turmoil. The author seems to have a clear vision of the personalities of each member of the family, which I found intriguing and left me wanting to know much more about them. This is a plot driven literary saga that focuses on a series of dramatic events that happen to the characters, but leaves me wanting more insight into the inner worlds of many of the characters.
Harriet bounces along from one experience to the next without sharing with us what is going on in her head apart from the little that is revealed through her conversations with others, this sets her up to be an enigmatic character to me. As for Olive, if you have not read the first book in the series, which I recommend, you would have no idea why she is so hateful, and these reasons can be compelling, but here the characterization is intense and I wanted a window into her soul to understand why. Harriet is surprisingly unscathed by having such a horrid mother, and it is awe inspiring that Tabs remains the loyal, long-suffering husband that he is.
Under the Grapevine is filled with intriguing characters that I wanted to explore further and deeper. This is a great family saga for readers who enjoy rousing drama against a vivid historical backdrop.
Pages: 296 | ASIN: B0981M5QYN
LITERARY TITAN 