Book Review: "The Sweet Taste Of Muscadines" By Pamela Terry

 “It’s never wise to wonder if you’d be friends with your family were you not bound together by blood. Like a waterlogged door that can never close properly again, once entertained, that question can permanently change things, making it easier for you to notice the faults and the foibles of the people you’re tied to for life.”

― Pamela Terry, The Sweet Taste of Muscadines: A Novel
“See, it’s a dangerous thing to let people grow up believing they have all the answers. They close their minds and stop questioning. Nothing’s a mystery anymore. Nobody’s right but them.”
― Pamela Terry, The Sweet Taste of Muscadines: A Novel

Truth be told this ain't all rainbows and roses as the picture might allude to upon the cover. This is all about the family secrets carried from one generation to the next and the children believing a false narrative.

It's not until the sudden demise of the mother Geneva Tolleson Bruce dies that we start to unravel the Pandora's Box of secrets tucked away in the garden of forever more.
Ok, I made the last part up but seriously, this is one for the ages, as we master the linguistics with the ebb and flow of the suspended animation.

The characters in this are the children who took off at an early age to save themselves. They're scattered all over the countryside. Lila is in Maine, Henry high-tailed it out to Rhode Island. Abigail -oh sweet Abby- is in Georgia.

Yet, something never sat right with the three kids. Home never felt homely. It always felt barren, empty, isolated, and dark.

Wait, till you see what comes next after the iceberg comes to light.
There's an entire underbelly just waiting to be exposed and it's shocking both literally and figuratively.

The subject matter is concerning sexual gender and societal acceptance especially back in a time and place where you didn't expose the truths and pretended to be 'normal' amongst your peers.

It was quite an extraordinary read that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Thank you to Pamela Terry, the pub, NetGalley, and Amazon Kindle for this ARC in exchange for this honest review.