The Eulogist by Terry Gamble

The Eulogist by Terry Gamble

Terry Gamble weaves some divisive issues here with race, slavery, and abolition of slavery with some real historical people and fictional characters. She creates an interesting family and I really enjoyed the family drama and dynamics between the characters. The writing and the story take on a lighter side to it as we follow Olivia’s journey from a woman unaffected by these issues to strong women with a sense for justice.

Terry Gamble creates an interesting character here with our main character Olivia. She is fearless (maybe a bit too much), strong, smart and engaging. I grew to really like her a lot. Even though I enjoyed these characteristics of her, I felt she didn’t really provoke much emotion from me and leaving me wanting a bit more emotional depth to the story.

As I was reading this one I was a little distracted and found it hard to keep my focus and I would of liked to have seen more depth to some of the issues explored here to drive the story forward for me.

The end left me thinking wow but not the way you might think. A lot of explanation for the story and characters happens in a few pages that left my head spinning. I would of liked a few more clues along the way instead of it all being told to me at once. I don’t think I was the only one because after reading this one we and our Traveling sisters had a few questions for each other.

Overall I enjoyed this one and I recommend it to readers who like to keep things light by not delving too deep into issues and enjoy some interesting family drama.

Fascinating, passionate and compelling!

THE EULOGIST by TERRY GAMBLE was an interesting, steady-paced, and subtle story that I sort of have some mixed feelings about. At times the story really grabbed me and I was totally interested in what I was reading but then at other times I was a little lost with the author’s choice of words and found myself a little impatient to get to the heart of the story. 

TERRY GAMBLE delivers an intriguing and well-written read here that was definitely an enjoyable and entertaining one but I felt like I wasn’t always invested in what I was reading through. The story seemed to jump around a little and where this story I felt was historically reliable in it’s telling it missed to actually fully immerse me in the lives of these characters and these so important times from history.

Thank you so much from both of us to Edelweiss, William Morrow/HarperCollins and Terry Gamble for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book to read and review.

Angela’s review

An Irish immigrant family arrives in Ohio in 1818 and their future in America is told through the lives of the three children through 1890. The writing is very good and without being overly descriptive, I felt as though I was there in all of the scenes. James, the eldest tries to establish a candle making business. His brother Erasmus takes to drink and the road as a preacher. Their sister Olivia was my favorite character, a strong woman with convictions about the role of women and about the injustices of slavery. She also was inquisitive and engaged in scientific endeavors with a doctor who becomes her husband. While I connected with Olivia from the start, the story seemed to move a little too slowly and I was impatient for the abolition activities to happen and to see how this family gets involved in helping slaves to freedom. It did pick up and I found myself invested also in the story of Tilly, a young slave who comes to live with Olivia and her husband Silas. From a historical perspective, it feels very accurate – the position of women in society, slavery, the cholera outbreak. Things are revealed about family members that connect them to the slaves that they try to bring to freedom. Besides, Olivia there were other admirable women, Tilly, the young slave, Hatsepha and Bethany, her sister’s in law. While the history is aptly reflected and there are strong women characters, the story seemed to jump around and didn’t feel that there was a cohesive plot.

Norma’s Stats:
Cover: Intriguing, lovely, reflective, surreal and a fitting representation to storyline. 
Title: My feelings on this title has kind of left me feeling a little bit baffled and indifferent but it did definitely initially intrigue me though. 
Writing/Prose: Well-written, entertaining, telling, engaging and broken. I did quite enjoy the writing style but did question some of the narrative though. 
Plot: Engrossing, interesting, anticlimactic, steady-paced, and entertaining. 
Ending: A lot was explained and happened quickly in the last few pages but I was satisfied with the way the story wrapped up though.
Overall: Even though I didn’t end up loving this book, I still appreciated and certainly enjoyed the mellow escape that this book provided. 

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