Reviewer: Connie Payne
Title: Kitty McKenzie - 1st in the Kitty McKenzie Saga
Author: Anne Whitfield
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
ISBN: 1-59998-065-7
Release Date: June 2006
Genre/Sub-genre: General Fiction - Historical
Year/Setting: 1864-1865 York, London
Overall Rating: 4.75
Sexual Content rating: None
Language (Profanity) Rating: None
Violent Content Rating: Negligible
Anne's Website:
www.annewhitfield.com/index.html
Kitty McKenzie has just lost her parents and young sister. As the oldest of seven children, she finds the responsibility of their welfare has fallen squarely on her shoulders. Family friends have turned their backs on them, no relatives have stepped forward to take them in, and to make matters worse she discovers her parents left a mountain of debts. They are in a word impoverished. Homeless. How could this have happened? They once lived as a toff did, never worked a day in their lives, nor did they know how to do a simple chore.
From their lushly gardened home they find themselves going ever deeper in to the tenement slums of the city. No work is to be had. No housing is available. Their plight seems hopeless. Until they run into Connie Spencer and her husband Max. From then on, life is full. Full of betrayal and trust, joy and despair, triumph and heartbreak. And love.
We’re given front row seats to Kitty’s life. A life that runs the gamut of a course but may be fuller by the trial and errors she must endure. And by the love she finds.
Her story inspires...be thankful for what you have. Don’t take your life or family for granted. It reminds us that we don’t know what life has in store for us in the next minute, hour, or day. And when our days turn stormy, there’s always an opportunity given. Be wise enough to see it for what it is. So cry and rant and rave about your sorrows, it’s ok, but afterwards have the courage to make something out of that opportunity.
Kitty’s story quietly lures the reader in and involves them in the lives of her and her family, both of the flesh and extended. There’s no fanfare within the pages, no gimmicks to the plot. It didn’t scream must read. Yet even though for a moment or two I became frustrated with Kitty or a scene, somehow this very pleasant book became a must read to me.
I can very easily see Kitty McKenzie, the saga of her and her family, as a PBS mini series. Brief though this book was, that’s how visual Anne Whitfield made it.
I eagerly look forward to reading Kitty McKenzie’s Land.
Connie
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