Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Nicole Seitz


Dear Readers,

I love reading books set in the south on cold snowy "spring" days. This past week was perfect for that. Nicole Seitz's newest, A Hundred Years of Happiness. Nicole lives in the low country of South Carolina and loves living there and you can tell by her writing that she does. Her descriptions of the people, places and atmosphere capture that area so very well.

This book is a bit different, or maybe normal for Nicole, but a very good read. It is written in the style that each of the main characters is given their own turns to "speak." Which makes for very different views of the same story. I will admit that I do sometimes forget who I am reading about and it does confuse me once in a while, but that is easily remedied by quickly turning back a couple pages. I love when authors do this as it is so neat to see the different people's perspective on the story.

Katherine - Ann is a daughter who is worried about her father. He is a Vietnam vet and is not acting like himself. For the first time in her life he has actually shared about the war. Which gets her to thinking that maybe she needs to learn more about that time in his life. She invites him to the Medal of Honor dinner they are having in Charleston, where he meets the first MOH winner from the Vietnam war. He is able to sit with him at dinner and gets his picture in the newspaper, which opens a can of worms no one expected.

Lisa has always longed for a father. Her mother, her uncle and herself fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. It has been a terrible life, they own their own restaurant, but Lisa has always felt that something was missing. When she sees John Porter's picture in the newspaper, she realizes that he looks like the picture of the American soldier in her mothers room. She just knows that is her father and sets about to find him.

This is a story of recovery, forgiveness and love. Family love, brotherly love and sacrifice. It is a good look at some of the struggles these guys that give so much to their country go through. We didn't help these vets at all because of what we did to them when they came back. I am still shocked when I hear those stories. Who were we that we felt so compelled to actually attack these guys when they came home. There is not one person who should have been doing that if they were not willing to go over there and fight themselves.

Sorry back to the story. It is a good one with a fabulous ending. In fact Nicole is so good at the endings I almost want to skip to the end first, but of course the rest of the story would be lost then. She is a very good story teller and one worth the read.

Happy Reading

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