Cold Rock River by Jackie Lee Miles

Copyright: 2006
Publisher: Cumberland House
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 281
Challenges: none (sniff sniff)
New-to-me Author: Yes
Author's Website


Simple Description:
Adie has the misfortune to do what sometimes happens to teenage girls, she gets pregnant at age 17. This was the early 60's and it wasn't accepted, if that's even the right word, like it is now and she was forced to marry the father, Buck. She moves in with him and his Mom, and they move back to the small town that Buck grew up in. She doesn't get along with her mother-in-law but has to deal with it, because what is a 17 year pregnant girl going to do? As luck would have it, one day while doing the grocery shopping she meets somebody who tells her about a shack that her and Buck could probably rent. She is taken to the shack and finds it acceptable. It needs some work, but it's better to have her own place than to live with a mother-in-law who doesn't like her. However, the day she is taken to the shack she is left alone there and she goes into labor. Luckily Murphy, the one who is going to rent it to her, sent Willa Mae to check on Adie. Willa Mae was his nanny and now that he is man of the farm, he looks out for her and build her a house closer to his. When Willa Mae shows up she finds Adie in labor. In order to help with the pain Willa Mae starts to read to her form a diary that she owns. It's the diary of Temp, a slave girl who grew up during the civil war.

Without going into much detail...let's just say that book takes you through the labor of the first child, how Adie has to learn to support herself and her daughter because Buck is more interested in running around on her than in taking care of his family. Soon Adie and Murphy have feelings for each other but Adie doesn't want to acknowledge them because she is married to Buck, even though Buck isn't much of a father or husband. All through the book you are given info on what is going on with Adie and you are able to read the diary along with her. So you really get to learn about two 17 year old girls and the things they went through at a young age.

Now what you really want to know....my thoughts:

I thought the book was really good and recommend it to others. There is one thing that bothered me about the book and I want to tell you about it so that there aren't any surprises if you decide to give this book a try. What bothered me was that Adie is constantly warning you about things that are going to happen. There are things like "If I had known then what was going to happen, I would have...." Stuff like that. I wanted her to stop warning me that things were going to happen and just tell the story. haha! It was frequent enough to annoy me but not enough to ruin the story. The story was good...loved how it ended and the different things Adie had to do throughout the story that forced her to grow up. Definitely think it's worth checking out.