Review: Flavors by Emily Sue Harvey

Title: Flavors

Author: Emily Sue Harvey

About (From author website):

Emily Sue Harvey’s first novel, Song of Renewal, was praised by New York Times bestselling author Jill Marie Landis as “an uplifting, heartwarming story,” by bestselling author Kay Allenbaugh as a work that will “linger in the memory long after readers put it aside,” and by Coffee Time Romance as “a must-read book for anyone doing a little soul searching.” New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry said, “It captures your attention, and whets your appetite for more,” while Peeking between the Pages called it “quite simply a beautiful book.”

Now, in Flavors, this master storyteller of the human heart sweeps us along with twelve-year-old Sadie Ann Melton as she enters a life-altering season. The summer of 1950 will change everything for her. For in that summer, she will embark on an odyssey at once heartbreakingly tender and crushingly brutal. At times, she will experience more darkness than she has ever witnessed before. At others, she will thrill to lightness and joy she never imagined. By summer’s end, the Melton women in Sadie’s journey – loving her, coaxing her, and commanding her – will help shape her into the woman she becomes. And they will expose Sadie to all of the flavors of life as she savors the world that she brings into being.

My Thoughts:

Flavors is a sweet coming-of-age story about a 12 year old girl named Sadie Ann. The story is told during a summer in the 1950's  in the South, when Sadie Ann and her little brother must spend the summer on the farm of their grandparents. The Melton's are a large family, living on a farm with simpler living conditions and a large extended family including aunts and uncles that are close in age to Sadie Ann.  Flavors is a novella, a short book of 115 pages. The book started a bit slow for me until about halfway through the book, I grew attached to Sadie Ann as she grows into adolescence and self awareness. Many of the experiences she goes through both good and bad help to form her identity and a life long connection of friends. The author wove into the story a connection between flavors and Sadie Ann's experiences of life from moods, emotions, family life, farm life, and connection to nature and animals. I liked the concept of connecting flavors to Sadie's life although I found some of the connections a bit lacking and they just didn't flow that smoothly into the story line. I found the theme of the importance of enjoying life even in the bitter sweet moments to be a relevant message to the reader.

About Emily Sue Harvey:

Emily Sue Harvey, author and speaker, writes to make a difference. Dozens of her upbeat stories and articles appear in Chocolate for Women, Chicken Soup for the Soul, women’s magazines, websites, and other anthologies. Her first hardback novel, Song of Renewal, was released by The Story Plant in July, 2009. An expanded paperback version of Song of Renewal, plus three novellas and two more full-length novels (Homefires and Unto These Hills) will come from The Story Plant in 2011.

To find out more about Emily visit www.renewalstories.com or www.emilysueharvey.com

I  am reviewing this book as part of the Flavors Virtual Book Tour sponsored by Pump Up Your Book. Thanks to The Story Plant for sending me a copy of this book for review.