"Eggbee's Dream", the first book in the "Cackleberries" series is the most exciting children's book I have read in quite some time. The story takes kids on magical adventure and the illustrations make the romp complete. I give "Eggbee's dream" five out of five stars, as does every youngster I have introduced this wonderful book to.

Eggbee's Dream is a wonderful story about the power of dreams. Supported by vivid illustrations, this book follows a young Cackleberry (aka egg) named Eggbee who, in his dreams, meets his favorite superhero and learns to overcome his fears in a tale of great adventure. From a daring rescue mission to a pot of boiling chocolate (I'm still laughing), this book has it all. In a time when great children's books are few and far between, this one caught my attention as rivetting entertainment for both kids and grownups alike!

"The Cackleberry Adventure Series" is a delightful escape for the imagination of children and adults alike. The bright, colorful characters are curiously drawn with hidden details that strike you over and over throughout reading the books. The story and art are engaging in their simplicity and attention to detail at the same time. Enjoy as we did!"

Finally, a book that deals with MS that makes you laugh! I started reading this book recently during a bad MS flare-up. Although I thought I'd start feeling even worse for and about myself, David's candid humor was probably the best medicine I could've asked for!! Even though my husband's dealing with my MS (and the stresses of being a caregiver)and sees my daily struggles, he had some well-deserved and well-earned laughs from this book! Thanks, David - we MSers need some more comic like yours!!

Finally, there's a comical side of MS! I started reading the book during a recent MS flare-up; even though I thought I'd started feeling worse both physically and mentally, I think this book was the best medicine I could've hoped for! Your comedy and writing are incredible. Thanks, David, for all you do for us MSer's!!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading David Lander's book. I laughed along with him. Having MS myself, I could truly relate to his
situation. He has a good outlook on life and is trying not to
let the MS get the best of him. He has quit a few interesting
things to say about MS and it's affects on the individual. I would recommend this book to anyone.

I thank you and you very much for taking the time to read my first book. Inspired by the Light will show you how to smile even when you don't think you need one. It turns your "I thought, I can't", into "I can do all things through Christ." These inspirational poems will show you how I trust God to do everything in my life. Be Inspired Today! Please order my book from Amazon.com today!! "Comeon" Inspired by the Light will guarantee you a big smile, and you will feel good because you order my smile today. I thank you from my heart to your heart for reading Inspired by the Light.

I am the printer Hanna Liles chose for her new book, "Inspired by the Light." During the time we were negotiating the printing contract, my step-father passed away and Hanna presented me with a poem from her book titled, "Going Home to be with my Heavenly Father." This poem put my feelings in order and I can't thank Hannah enough for helping me through this difficult time.

I LOVE THE ORGINALITY OF THIS BOOK. YOU CAN READ IT ANYTIME OF THE DAY OR NIGHT. WHEN YOUR DOWN OR NOT FEELING WELL, IT WILL CHEER YOU UP. IT'S A NICE BOOK TO READ WHEN YOUR IN A GOOD MOOD. I ALSO LIKE THE WAY THE WRITER HAS A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. I'VE NOT READ A BOOK IN A LONG TIME AND I'M GLAD I BROKE THAT STREAK WITH THIS ONE.

After having spent weeks performing exhaustive research on cancer treatments, this book was as godsend: it describes the important cancer treatments, explains the disease, and has hundreds of references for treatment or information. The book has close to a thousand pages of well researched, well written information. It provided delightful, informative reading for weeks, as well as pointing us to a naturopath and oncologist for treatment.

A wonderful reference book to have for those who are looking for cancer treatments other than surgery, chemotherapy and radiation for themselves or for their loved ones.

This book, writtin in easily understood layman's language lays out the alternative treatments of more than 20 doctors. This information proved to be a life saver for me when my lymphoma recurred following chemotherapy. This book gave me the information I needed to get the treatment to solve my problem rather than diddle with the symptoms. The bottom line message is "YOU DONT HAVE TO DIE FROM CANCER"

I'm a fund raising coordinator for a national charity. I used "The Celebrity Address Directory" to contact celebrities for an autograph donation for our annual celebrity auction. We had a wonderful time and the event was a great success. Many signed items sold for more than the anticipated price. Mr. Ellis was a help to us by provided updated addresses and he was professional, fast and courtesy with all his replies. I would highly recommend this book to all fundraisers because the book is well organized by celebrity category and makes sending out requests very easy.

I'm a fund-raiser coordinator for a national charity. I used "The Celebrity Address Directory" to contact celebrities for an autograph donation for our annual celebrity auction. We had a wonderful time and the event was a great success. Many signed items sold for more than the anticipated price. Mr. Ellis was a help to us by providing updated addresses. He was professional, fast and courtesy with all his replies. I would highly recommend this book to all fund-raisers because the book is well organized by celebrity category and makes sending out requests very easy.

When I received my copy of this book I was surprised. It has many top name celebrities and a lot more! I like the lists he has in this book - celebrity birthdays, celebrity charities, celebrity hobbies, top paid entertainers, Rock' Roll Hall of Famers, Nobel Prize winners, places to get in person autographs and via venues -places to send a request where a celebrity is performing. I haven't seen these features in any other celebrity book. Got to go, I have letters to write.

I purchased the audiotape of this book and listened to it on my daily commute. The presentation of the idea was very simple and made me feel like I could follow their suggestions too! I sat down and worked out my tracking, target, trimming, and training goals and realized that with all of my debt...I could be paid off and debt free by April of 2003 (and I had lots of debts from just finishing my doctorate). I also mentioned some of the ideas in this tape to my 13 year old (that if a 15 year old puts $7 aside each month until s/he was 65...and received 15% return...that they'd be a millionaire at retirement). She, too, is excited about the rules given in this book.

At last! A finance book I can read like a story! Not boring, lecturing, or intimidating like other books of this nature. This book literally saved my financial future. I am now on the road to debt free prosperity, and feeling great about life. My perspective on money and how I spend it has changed completely.

This book lays it so simply - how to get out of debt, including paying off your house mortgage, in five years or less. I now see how it is happening for me! And what is great is that you don't have to earn more income, it doesn't make any difference how much you earn, it's all about how you spend your money. Great book for everyone, and get the teens to read it now!

Dick Lee has done it again - distilled years of consulting experience into a practical guidebook that will assure the success of virtually any CRM project. Don't expect the usual consultant's mindless assortment of silver-bullet checklists though. These projects still take work. I will say that if you diligently follow the steps clearly outlined in Strategic CRM, Dick Lee's complete CRM implementation manual, your customers will be better off for it!

...

Leave it to Dick Lee to observe that the only result of down'n'dirty Customer Relationship Management implementations is to get down and dirty. His trademark common-sense approach which made the first version so indispensable is sharper than ever in 2.0.

Lee's distilled his earlier work here. The book completely updates his four-step method -- Developing Customer-Centric Strategies, Redesigning Workflow, Re-engineering Work Processes and Supporting With Technology -- and presents it between two covers for ease of use.

Lee's the ideal guide for companies already convinced of the need for CRM, but who need highly practical step-by-step guidance. He dispenses with high-flying jargon and theoretical musings in favor of showing what CRM looks like on the ground. How should you structure team leadership, identify the market cycle for each customer group or map current data flows? What size conference room should you book for a certain team meeting, how much time should it take and how many flip charts and markers will you need? Lee gives you the benefit of his vast experience in answering such questions which you probably didn't even think to ask. His painstaking visual representations of old vs. new sales proposal cycles, proposal resolutions, customer service flows, etc. are definitive, to make them any simpler he'd have had to do them in crayon.

Battle scars are all over the book. On "Change Management" he says "There are two aspects of change management critical to the success of CRM implementations: Leadership and firefighting. The more you have of #1, the less you'll need of #2." Here's a man who's seen more unnecessary firefighting than he cares to remember. He's learned that the best way to impart the information that needs to be imparted is to use the old threefold approach: Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, tell 'em, then tell 'em what you just told 'em. From setting a baseline to beta and launch he walks you step-by-step through what needs to happen when; a seeing-eye dog doesn't provide better guidance than this.

This is an implementation manual in the most literal sense of the term, a book to have open on the desk while you implement CRM.

David Sims, owner of business freelance and copywriting house David Sims Writing writes regularly for CRMGuru.com and CRM magazine among other publications.

Dick Lee's latest editorial undertaking - Strategic CRM - is rich in personal experience and implementation strategies and rewarding in potential CRM results. A four-step process manual to be read with pen in hand, Lee makes you think - and think again. Exhaustingly exhilarating, Strategic CRM is a win-win opportunity for both you and your customers. You Betcha!

Carol Parenzan Smalley, CRMGuru.com

This book deals with events from 1835 to 1845 and is principally concerned with John Quincy Adams' fight over the House rule which forbad the reception of petitions about slavery. This may seem like a narrow issue to be the subject of a 556 page book, but this book is flawlessly written, and has great humor--exposing the idiocy of the slavery upholders--and at times brought tears to my eyes. A dropback to the stirring events of 1775 and 1776, found on pages 155 to 157, is as good a writing as I have ever seen evoking the sheer drama of those days. This is a nigh flawless book for one as interested as I am in congressional history and the years before the Civil War.

Miller presents a detailed history of a remarkable period in U.S. Congressional history leading up to the Civil War. Miller describes the battle waged in the U.S. House of Representatives, led by John Quincy Adams, to preserve the right of citizens to petition their government, and his efforts to keep the issue of slavery before the House. I finally saw one of the important effects of the infamous 3/5's rule, which was to create a power imbalance in Congress in which slave holding states dominated the House due to the additional Congressional Reps. they gained by virtue of their large slave populations. It was this imbalance that hindered Congress from a full debate regarding the abolition of slavery. Extremely informative, very well researched and documented, and Miller weaves a witty commentary throughout that is most enjoyable. This is a book that should be read in every high school American History class. It is at times dry (big surprise as Miller details Congressional proceedings) but nonetheless fascinating. I have a new appreciation of the contribution of Adams to the battle against slavery.

Try discussing the relative role of slavery in the American Civil War, and the discussion will likely turn on its ear quickly, with little generated other than heated words. So often, it seems, we cannot discuss this subject except with anesthetic prose, or highly spirited points of view. Not so with William Lee Miller's Arguing About Slavery. The author, Thomas C. Sorensen Professor Political and Social Thought at the University of Virginia, has crafted a wonderfully expressed story of the battle over slavery in the 1830s and 1840s on the floor of Congress.

To those of us in the late twentieth century, the idea of petitioning to consider a prayer for action, the Constitutional sanctity of the act, and the relative abuse of the privilege by Congressmen both North and South seems the actions of an almost foreign government. The nearly maniacal desire of Congress to avoid any discussion of slavery in toto also seems incredible in light of government today. Using Congressional records to retell the story in the words of the participants, Miller weaves a fascinating tale as forces in the North try to ensure the rights of their petitioners, as well as deal with continued efforts to stop them dead in their tracks.

There are three major areas to the book: the opening of the slavery issues in Congress, with the presentation and fights by Southern radicals to keep any admittance of them from even appearing in Congress, the development and passage of the "gag rule," in which any attempt to place a petition in front of Congress regarding slavery was "gagged," and finally, the story of former President John Quincy Adams in these fights, and his efforts to support the rights of American constituents in these battles.

The story of Adams is the centerpiece of the book. In laying out the man who would not back down to both Southern and Northern Democratic interests, Miller brings back to life an American figure who is likely lost to many of our generation. Adams, already in his sixties as the slavery battles began, was an unlikely hero. Having served in nearly every capacity he could prior to agreeing to run for Congress after his presidential term, he brought a dogged determination to duty that is hardly recognizable in today's terms. Adams was not an abolitionist, but he was determined that the voices of his constituents, should they be of an abolition ideal, should be heard in the halls of Congress. To that end, he battled for a decade to make those voices heard.

Making use of Adams's massive personal diary, historical context, as well as the Congressional Globe coverage of the proceedings of Congress, Miller delivers the story of these battles in the words of those who were there. Thus, we can see the fanatical words of South Carolinian planter James Henry Hammond: "And I warn the abolitionists, ignorant, infatuated, barbarians that they are, that if chance shall throw any of them into our hands he may expect a felon's death," and Waddy Thompson, Jr.: "In my opinion nothing will satisfy the excited, the almost frenzied South, but an indignant rejection of these petitions [calling for the end of slavery in the District of Columbia]; such a rejection as will at the same time that it respects the right of petitioning, express the predetermination, the foregone conclusion of the House on the subject -- a rejection, sir, that will satisfy the South, and serve as an indignant rebuke to the fanatics of the North." And finally, we see and hear in our minds eye the torture of Adams as he struggles to balance his personal devotion to his country (he was a strong Unionist) with his obligations and duties to his office. Looking at war as a possibility between the two sides of the Union, he concludes in his diary: "It seems to me that its result [that of war] might be the extirpation of slavery from this whole continent; and, calamitous and desolating as this course of events in its progress must be, so glorious would be its final issue, that, as God shall judge me, I dare not say that it is not to be desired."

Much more than just a chronological narration of events, Miller weaves in background of the events and personalities in order to make his subject come alive. Arguing About Slavery is a book outside the mainstream of standard Civil War book fare, but a must if you have any desire to understand the people, events, and stories that led to the great conflict beginning in 1861.

This is a delightful book in which Linda recounts her life as a member of the extraordinary Lewis family. The style is conversational, warm, and intimate - so much so that you can almost hear her dropping her voice as she gets to the more delicate bits. It's like having her sitting by your side, chatting away - slipping in the odd bit of scandal here and there to spice up the narrative, lest your attention should wander. Linda does the story justice by telling it simply and with humour. And what a story it is! If it had been written as fiction it would be dismissed as being to fanciful. Shootings, killings, Heaven, Hell, the Devil, death and judgment, marriage, divorce, sex, drugs, and rock n roll all play their part - and that's just for starters. Chapter two gets even better. Linda begins with a snapshot of family life in Ferriday, Louisiana, with (one imagines) daddy coming in from a hard day's bootlegging to Jerry Lee playing boogie-woogie, momma raising the roof with songs of praise and big sister Frankie Jean generally causing mayhem. It wasn't until later in life that Linda realized that not every family lived like the Lewis' - but for all their percieved shortcoming (even by Ferriday standards they were regarded as somewhat eccentric) momma and daddy were exemplary parents. No one could have done more for their children or been more supportive. The story of mortgaging the family home to buy a piano and selling eggs to raise money to get to Sun Records are well known, but Linda for her part remembers the talk at home as always being of 'when' Jerry Lee becomes famous-never 'if'. The Lewis family were always well represented at the Holiness Church in Ferriday - which Linda Gail describes as a battle ground between good and evil. Guys urged on by the preaching and the singing and the speaking in tongues would confess all manner of sins and vow to fight the good fight, which some of them did - at least for an hour or so afterwards, In later years as older members of the family died and were buried, Linda and Jerry Lee with cousins Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Lee Swaggart would return to sing with the fifty or so regular congregation in what must have been the gospel shows to end all gospel shows. The lessons learned in church were taken to heart - even though the bit about not sleeping together without getting married meant that Linda (like Jerry) had to tie the knot many times over to keep to the letter, if not the spirit of the law. Linda recounts her marriages with good humour and without rancour. One guy blew his brains out, another just lasted for one glorious sex-filled weekend and in one case a quickie divorce(to allow an immediate re-marriage) was facilitated by judge who was well disposed to the Lewis', having played the mailman in the movie 'Great Balls of Fire.' A good deal of the book is taken up with life on the road with Jerry Lee. Having dropped out of school whe was able to see Jerry through the lean years following the Myra incident. She went everywhere with him, backwards and forwards across America playing any club or bar that would have them, even places where she says they frisked you for guns - and if you didn't have one, they gave you one. Jerry's resilience and determination in fighting his way back to the top is widely acknowledged, but Linda - forever his number one fan - deserves some of that recognition for her totally untiring and unselfish support. It grieves her that in later years Jerry Lee has been hi-jacked by the infamous Dr. Nick and sixth wife Kerrie, Linda is generous towards previous wives but understandably wouldn't give Kerrie the lickings of a dog. What should have been the crowning of a glorious career seems set to end in ruins - and that hurts. But among the lighter moments - and there are plenty - it is revealed that Jerry Lee Lewis sleeps with a fully loaded sub-machine gun under his bed. But as to the circumstances in which he came to use it - you'll have to read the book. It would be wrong to give the game away here - and in any case, Linda tells it so much better. In life, as in the book, there's never a dull moment with 'The Devil, Me, and Jerry Lee'.

This is a delightful book - in which Linda recounts her life as brother to rock and roll star Jerry Lee Lewis. The style is conversational, warm and intimate - so much so that her voice can be heard to drop as she slips the odd bit of scandal here and there lest the attention should wander. Linda does the story justice by telling it simply and with humor. And what a story it is ! If it had been written as fiction - it would be dismissed as being too fanciful. Shooting, killings, Heaven, Hell, the Devil, death and judgement, marriage, divorce, sex, drugs and rock and roll all play their part - and that's just for starters. Chapter two is even better.

Linda begins with a snap-shot of family life in Ferriday, Louisiana - with Daddy coming in from a hard day's bootlegging to Jerry Lee playing boogie-woogie and Momma raising the roof with songs of Praise. It wasn't until later in life that Linda realised that not every family lived like the Lee Lewis's - even by Ferriday standards they were regarded as somewhat eccentric.

The Lewis family were always well represented at the Holiness Church in Ferriday, Louisiana - which Linda describes as a battleground between good and evil. People would confess all manner of sins and vow to fight the good fight, which some of them did - at least for an hour or so afterwards. The lessons learned in church were taken to heart - even though the bit about not sleeping together without getting married meant that Linda (like Jerry) had to tie the knot many times over to keep within the letter, if not the spirit of the law. Linda is quite specific as to why her marriages failed. For example one guy blew his brains out and another just lasted for one glorious 'sex-filled' weekend.

A good deal of the book is taken up with life on the road with Jerry Lee - during the lean years which followed the 'scandal' of the marriage to his 13 year old cousin. She went everywhere with him, backwards and forwards across America playing any club or bar that would have them, even the places where she says they frisked you for guns - and if you didn't have one they gave you one. It grieves Linda that in later years - Jerry Lee has been hi-jacked by the infamous Dr.Nick and sixth wife Kerrie. What should have been the crowning of a glorious career seems set to end in ruins - and that hurts.

But among the lighter moments - and there are plenty, it is revealed that Jerry Lee Lewis sleeps with a fully loaded sub-machine gun under his bed. But as to the circumstances in which he came to use it - well, it would be wrong to give the game away here. In any case Linda can tell it so much better. In life, as in the book - there's never a dull moment with 'The Devil, Me and Jerry Lee'.

This is a delightful book in which Linda recounts her life as a member of the exrtaordinary Lewis family. The style is conversational, warm and intimate - so much so that you can almost hear her dropping her voice as she gets to the more delicate bits. It's like having her sitting by your side, chatting away - slipping in the odd bit of scandal here and there to spice up the narrative lest your attention should wander. Linda does the story justice by telling it simply and with humour. And what a story it is! If it had been written as fiction it would be dismissed as being too fanciful. Shooting, killings, Heaven, The Devil, death and judgement, marriage, divorce, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll all play their part - and that's just for starters. Chapter two gets even better. Linda begins with a snapshot of family life in Ferriday, Louisiana with (one imagines) daddy coming in from a hard day's bootlegging to Jerry Lee playing boogie-woogie, momma raisin' the roof with songs of praise and big sister Frankie Jean generally causing mayhem. It wasn't until later in life that Linda realised that not every family lived like the Lewis' - but for all their perceived shortcomings (even by Ferriday standards they were regarded as somewhat eccentric), daddy and momma were exemplary parents. No one could have done more for their children or been more supportive. The story of mortgaging the family home to buy a piano and selling eggs to raise money to get to Sun Records are well known, but Linda for her part remembers the talk at home as always being of 'when' Jerry Lee would become famous - never 'if'. The Lewis famiuly were always well represented at the Holiness Church in Ferriday - which Linda describes as the battleground between good and evil. Guys urged on by the preaching and the singing and the speaking in tongues would confess all manner of sins and vow to fight the good fight, which some of them did - at least for an hour or so afterwards. In later years as older members of the family died and were buried, Linda and Jerry Lee with cousins Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Lee Swaggart would return to sing with the fifty or so regular congregation in what must have been the gospel show to end all gospel shows. The lessons learned in church were taken to heart - even though the bit about not sleeping together without getting married meant that Linda (like Jerry) had to tie the knot many times over to keep within the letter, if not the spirit of the law. Linda recounts her marriages with good humour and without rancour. One guy blew his brains out, another just lasted for one glorious sex-filled weekend and in one case a quickie divorce (to allow an immediate re-marriage) was facilitated by a judge who was well disposed to the Lewis', having played the mailman in the movie 'Great Balls Of Fire'. A good deal of the book is taken up with life on the road with Jerry Lee. Having dropped out of school she was able to see Jerry through the lean years following the Myra incident. She went everywhere with him, backwards and forwards across America playing any club or bar that would have them, even the places where she says they frisked you for guns - and if you didn't have one, they gave you one. Jerry's resillience and determination in fighting his way back to the top is widely acknowledged, but Linda - forever his number one fan - deserves some of that recognition for her totally untiring and unselfish support. It grieves her that in later years Jerry Lee has been hi-jacked by the infamous Dr. Nick and sixth wife Kerrie. Linda is generous towards previous wives but understandably wouldn't give Kerrie the lickings of a dog. What should have been the crowning glory of a glorious career seems to end in ruins and that hurts. But among the lighter moments - and there are plenty - it is revealed that Jerry Lee Lewis sleeps with a fully-loaded sub-machine gun under his bed. But as to the circumstances in which he came to use it - you'll have to read the book. It would be wrong to give the name away here, and in any case Linda tells it so much better. In life, as in the book, there's never a dull moment with 'The Devil, Me and Jerry Lee'. Chris Woodford.

Those who aren't members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, better known as Mormons, may not be familiar with the issues of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I had never heard of this event, myself.

In Ferry Woman, Gerald Grimmett tries to shed light on the role of John Lee, the man who bore the brunt of the blame for the historical massacre.

The author creates a fictional character (the Ferry woman) --one of Lee's wives. It is through her questioning eyes that the reader sees the events unfold. John Lee is hardly a pleasant character, the Mormons don't come off at all well. Even though Lee's role is toned to "participated" rather than "instigated", Lee is not exonerated in the least. We also get a very gritty glimpse of the less-attractive side of life in Utah during the early days of the Morman settlements, and it seems pretty accurate. Life was, as is the familiar quotation, nasty, brutal and sometimes short.

I didn't know about this historical event (I guess my history of that part of the West begins and ends with the Mormons being run out of Nauvoo and the Donner Party.) So I didn't particularly have an opinion about this massacre. As a historical novel, it is well written and interesting. If you are a reader seeking a romantic-style historical novel, this isn't it. If you like realistic historical novels, you might really enjoy this book.

Gerald Grimmett's new novel, "The Ferry Woman", is based on the historical event in the history of the West and of the Mormon Church, known as the Mountain Meadow Massacre. Events described in the story are told from the perspective of one of the wives of the only man executed by the legal system for his role in an atrocity that was almost certainly ordered by then church leader and founder of Salt Lake City and the Mormon establishment in the arid western interior of the United States.
A primary feature of early Mormon social relations was the aggressive practice of polygamy, which was only abandoned officially by the church as part of a strategy to prevent a military confrontation between Utah, whose leaders were also those of the church, and the US Army contingent then on its way to enforce Mormon compliance with federal laws against plural marriage. The Ferry Woman was one of the wives of John D. Lee, one of those leaders whose directed mission within the church was to settle and develop the Harmony area between Cedar City and St. George Utah. Grimmett is at his best describing the interactions between his characters and their environment.
This reader confesses to some uneasiness in the early pages, at the prospect of accepting a woman's perspective from the narrative pen of a male writer. That is dispelled by the surprising sensitivity and care apparent in the effort. One observes that if this is not true to the way of thinking and self-expression of a young orphaned immigrant serial wife of a much older man, and a formidable, hard-working community leader, devoted husband and father, well it should be. Reading, one is overtaken by a growing sense of the book as literature, especially remembering that the Ferry Woman, although realistically and plausibly detailed in the narrative, is still a fictional construct.
Knowing its subject already, I went into this book skeptical of its potential for a full and courageous exploration of the dark scenario at its heart. After the first 100 pages, I couldn't stop reading it. I closed the book at last with the feeling that the author had succeeded in something extraordinarily important here. Grimmett has skillfully illustrated how even a humanity motivated, in extremis, by patently flaky beliefs about the nature of existence, can thrive. This is a book with legs, and the time was well spent reading it.

A reader with roots in that area of the US that is today within the sphere of influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), with its epicenter in Salt Lake, is likely to agree with the statement of the Poet Laureate of the State of Utah, as quoted on the jacket, that the reaction to the book by modern descendants of the times and personalities described in it, is awaited with eager anticipation. The story is told with a surprisingly precise sense of the supernatural aura that surrounds Mormon history itself, especially as it manifests itself in the 'testimony' borne by modern believers. To a gentile growing up surrounded by it, an ardent love of the church and its teachings is one of the most salient characteristics of expressions made about it by its followers. A less blatant expression, but no less potent one, is a fear of the church and its retribution for non-conformity or apostasy. At the time of events narrated in the novel, when the young church collectively labored not just for legitimacy but for survival, that fear may have been the predominant organizing principle, especially where the rights of women were involved.

The Ferry Woman, is an account of the aftermath of the Mountain Meadows massacre, an important incident in the history of American westward expansion. The events described in this book encompasses the eras of Manifest Destiny, the misportrayal of Native Americans to the American public, the building of Western "empires", and 19th century religious cultism, as seen through the eyes of the fictional, Emeline Buxton Lee. Through Emeline, the author explores the personal tragedies that accompanied the mass-murder of 127 California-bound emigrants by Mormon pioneer settlers of "Deseret" in 1857. Key among Emelines' personal tragedies are the trials and eventual execution of the her husband, John Lee, adopted son of Brigham Young, who was, in his own words, "...used by the Mormon Church as a scape-goat to carry the sins of that people." (J. Lee 1877). The author brings to life the experiences of a pioneer woman who is swept up in events far beyond her control. Through the authors portrayal of her, we experience the joys and hardships of pioneer life during the mid-19th. century. Grimmett's intelligent and sensitive treatment of the subject matter, most particularly the challenges of love and integrity involved in sharing a husband who possesses multiple wives, provides a thoughtful and satisfying literary experience. Well done!