Toot's Book Reviews: Spotlight, Review, Author Interview & Giveaway: Eden by Jamie Lisa Forbes

Book Blurb & Info

Rowen Hart has been raised as the pampered son and only child of a prominent family in the small community of White Rock, North Carolina. It’s the 1950s and he’s drifting through the days, following the life path his parents have planned for him and preparing to go away to college. When his father’s suicide turns his world upside down, he finds himself responsible for his mother in their suddenly reduced circumstances that leave them dependent on his uncle, his father’s business partner.

Ill prepared to take over as head of the family, Rowen doesn’t know which way to turn. Then a neighbor’s ten year old daughter comes to live with them, baffling him with her wild behavior and never ending attempts to win his approval and making his new responsibilities even more overwhelming.

As Rowen tries to find his way, he begins to question everything about his upbringing, his current circumstances and his plans for the future as they turn to dust in his hands.

Buy Links

Goodreads / Amazon

Praise

“Throughout this beautifully written story (Unbroken), I pictured the scenes, the characters, and visualized it all as if I walked among them. Five stars.”-Laurel Rain-Snow, Rainy Days and Mondays

“Unbroken is a powerful, absorbing book from the first page to the last. Forbes’ Wyoming ranch background adds rich flavors to the story. The author draws realistic, complex characters. Unbroken is an unvarnished testimonial to a way of life that few of us know.”– Mary E. Trimble, author of ‘ TUBOB: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps’

“The Widow Smalls, is a collection of wonderful stories that will elicit a range of emotions, following a number of different themes, like loss, jealousy, regret and acceptance. Each of the stories was as well written as the last, and I enjoyed each one immensely. Wonderful diverse plots, linked with the similar thread of ranch life, and defined characters, made for a truly great read. Author Jamie Forbes, has really created something special here, a must read for all short story lovers.”- Michelle Geist, Verified Amazon Review

Toot's Review by Betty Bee

Rowen Hart is exactly the kind of character that I love to read about. In the beginning of the book, he is the formerly pampered and slightly spoiled son of a wealthy family who has recently fallen on hard times. See, Rowen's father committed suicide and his mother did not take the death well, cutting herself off from society and basically cloistering herself in her bedroom where she spends her days in bed.

With only their housekeeper, Adeline to confide in, Rowen suddenly finds the burden of becoming the head of the family on his own, 18 year old shoulders. But he's not the only young person in town that is suddenly finding themselves in drastically changed circumstances. Eden Whitney, a 10 year old girl who lives in the same town, has recently witnessed the murder of her father by her uncle. After this, she comes to live with Rowen and his mother, relying on their kindness and hospitality.

This book was so well written that it transported me back through the years to the 1950's in North Carolina. Jamie Lisa Forbes really captured, not only the time period but the atmosphere of the American south in such a beautiful and fulfilling way. Reading this book was like eating a delicious dessert that just kept on giving! However, be sure to have a box of tissues ready!

I loved how Rowen eventually grew as a character over the course of the novel and how we watched Eden slowly overcome her trauma, and the streak of wildness that stems from it. Eden was basically the impetus to help Rowen mature into an adulthood that he had not been prepared for, and naming the novel after her was so fitting and perfect. This novel was like a snapshot of the 1950's south and one that I will definitely be thinking about for a long while. I give ‘Eden’ five stars!

Interview

Interview with Betty and Jamie Lisa Forbes

What’s your favorite genre and why?

Fiction is my favorite genre. I have gone through periods where I wanted to try memoir writing. I believe I have lived an interesting life, but I began to see that through fiction, I could reveal my life’s lessons in a more inspiring fashion than if I had simply told what actually happened. What finally encapsulated this for me was Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. At the climax of the book, the narrator reveals to his listeners that the tiger in his life raft was fiction and he then confesses the “true” account of what happened to him and the rest of the passengers on their sinking ship. He concludes with the question, “Which was the better story?” That line resonated down to my core. I write fiction because “the tiger” is the better story.

Describe a typical writing day. Are you a morning, afternoon, or night-owl writer?

I am a morning person generally, so I think my best writing is done in the morning. I can write at other times of day, but I find that the intense concentration that writing requires is usually better for me in the mornings.

What inspires you when you’re writing?

The answer to that question has really depended on my subject matter. My first novel was Unbroken, which was the tale of two ranching families in Wyoming. What inspired me initially was how much I missed ranching life, but as I continued to work on the book over several years what inspired me was my dawning realization of just how hard-working and courageous ranching women really were. When I lived in Wyoming, I hadn’t appreciated that fact. By the time the book was half-way written, it was the two main characters, Gwen Swan and Meg Braeburn, who inspired me because they’d become real women, so much like the ones I had known.

In writing the title story to The Widow Smalls and Other Stories what inspired me was the predicament I had created of a thoroughly disengaged ranch wife who is forced to take control of her life when her husband passes. Leah Smalls was vivid to me from the very first moment I had conceived of her, down to the Elvis head puzzle that she works on in her leisure time. On the other hand, running a ranch is extremely demanding and requires daily total commitment. The clash between Leah Smalls’ decision to run her own ranch in spite her obnoxious in-laws and all the hardships that that would entail became the inspiration for that story.

Eden was inspired by my experiences in North Carolina. I had been fortunate over the years to be able to visit many small, struggling North Carolina towns. At the same time, I have been a witness to dark events of domestic violence, domestic abuse, racism, and child abuse. I was inspired to tell the story of the North Carolina I had experienced. Not the real story, the “tiger” story.

What’s your favorite item on your writing desk?

A small photograph of my father and step-mother when they got married. It brings back vivid memories of them. I miss them very much.

Who or what inspired you to become a writer? How long have you been writing? How long as a published writer?

It seemed easier to deal with all three of these questions in one response. In one word, it was books that inspired me to become a writer. My earliest memories begin with books. To this day, I still have the earliest books that I read and re-read as a child, including Dr. Seuss’ Yertle the Turtle, Alice in Wonderland and nearly everything by A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh). Once I could write, I began writing stories and poems. I can easily say that I have been a writer all my life. I was extremely fortunate that through grade school, junior high and high school, teachers encouraged me to keep writing. I owe my success to all of them. I was also fortunate to have had excellent writing instructors in college. I won my first creative writing award at the University of Denver in 1975.

After graduation, my writing career was interrupted by starting my family on our family ranch. As my children grew older, I started writing again and my short stories were published in a literary journal, Confrontation. After I left the ranch, there was a long period of time when I did not write and then an idea for a book that I had had for many years kept poking me and wouldn’t let me rest until I started committing it to words and that book idea became Unbroken.

When you’re not writing, how do you spend your time?

I am blessed to have a very rich life. I am a semi-retired attorney, so I continue to do legal work. I also have five grandchildren and I spend a lot of my time with them. I have a horse, Cody, and I ride.

When I moved to North Carolina, I discovered Appalachian string music. I learned to play fiddle and I can play fiddle for hours.

And I enjoy taking walks with my two dogs, Reggie and Chewey.

What are your favorite parts of Eden?

One of the questions I sought to answer in Eden was how is it that seemingly good people live side by side with social evils and yet do nothing about them. For an extreme example, how did the denial of voting rights and equal opportunity to people of color persist for decades in the South with no attempt to rectify it? Were all the white people infected with race hatred? I don’t think so. I think they were all like Rowen Hart.

My favorite scene in this story is the scene that, in my mind, explains Rowen’s damning complacency. This is the scene where Eden’s mother and uncle have come to Rowen’s door- step to retrieve her after she has lived with Rowen for a year. Despite Rowen’s love for Eden, despite his knowledge that Eden’s relatives have never loved her, or cared for her, he lets her go. As I was writing this scene and standing in Rowen’s shoes, I could see how his mother, his fiancé and Eden’s family are able to bring to bear the whole structure of life that Rowen has grown up in and adopted as his own in order to silence him. As readers, we know Rowen has another choice. Writing this scene, I learned that it is the dirty lie of small, closed societies that there is no other choice.

Just for fun:

Did you go to college? If so, what was your major?

I began at the University of Denver in 1974 and transferred to the University of Colorado where I graduated in 1977. My major was in Philosophy and English.

Are you a full-time writer or do you also work in another field? If so, what field?

I graduated from the University Of North Carolina School Of Law in 2001 and I have been a practicing attorney since that time.

Thanks for this opportunity to share a little about myself and my work.

Author Info

Award winning author, Jamie Lisa Forbes was raised on a ranch along the Little Laramie River near Laramie, Wyoming. She attended the University of Colorado where she obtained degrees in English and philosophy. After fourteen months living in Israel, she returned to her family’s ranch where she lived for another fifteen years.

In 1994, she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. In 2001, she graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law and began her North Carolina law practice.

Her first novel, Unbroken, won the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction in 2011. Her collection of short stories, The Widow Smalls and Other Stories, won the High Plains Book Awards for a short story collection in 2015. Her law practice gave her the opportunity to travel many of the back roads of North Carolina and meet the unique and diverse individuals who inspired Eden.

Author Links
Website: https://www.jamielisaforbes.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jamielisaforbes
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JamieLisaForbes

~Giveaway~

This giveaway is for the winner’s choice of print or ebook however, print is open to the U.S. only and ebook is available worldwide. There will be 2 winners. This giveaway ends July 1, 2020,midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.

~To Enter~

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