TYPORAMA
***********
************
Three generations of remarkable women grappling with their unique roles in a changing world.
************
PRAISE FOR DAUGHTERS OF GREEN MOUNTAIN GAP:
Editorial Reviews
Readers’ Favorite
Reviewed by: Grant Leishman
Review Rating: 5 Stars
Daughters of Green Mountain Gap by Teri M Brown is a moving, multi-generational story of three rural North Carolina women at the end of the nineteenth century. Maggie McCoury is a healing woman, known as a Granny Woman, and is much sought after around Green Mountain Gap for her knowledge of plants and medicinal herbs. She has garnered much of her healing knowledge by listening to and learning from the local Cherokee medicine man. Although the God-fearing townsfolk dislike and distrust the Cherokee, they do appreciate Maggie’s ability to cure ailments. Maggie’s daughter Carrie Ann, though, is less enamored with her mother’s abilities and secretly blames her mother for being unable to save her father when he was sick. She has studied to be a nurse and is determined to bring science and “real” medicine to Green Mountain Gap. Carrie Ann’s daughter Josie Mae, however, believes in her grandmother’s power and wants to be just like her. The three women have to negotiate their fragile relationships and the constant reality of sickness and death from unknown and dangerous contagions in this era between science and faith.
Daughters of Green Mountain Gap is a fantastic and illuminating read of a seminal period of history as science and faith intersected and often clashed. Author Teri M Brown has created three utterly engaging characters; strong, independent, and fiercely loyal women who are not afraid to speak their minds and stick to their convictions. I particularly enjoyed the constant emotional tension between Maggie and Carrie Ann as well as that between Carrie Ann and Josie Mae. I appreciated the irony that whilst the people of Green Mountain Gap were happy to embrace the cures and medicine Maggie provided, they still had an intense fear and distrust of the Cherokee people from whom she had learned much of her trade. I also liked that the doctor, Daniel, was so open to Maggie’s healing and could see the gift that she had, whereas her daughter was too blinded by her anger and belief in modernity to see what was glaringly obvious to others. The concept of balance resonated with me when they discussed the fact that both modern medicines and some herbal remedies had two sides to them, both a negative (poisonous side) and a positive (healing side). Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this wonderful story is the importance of belief and attitude in the healing process, not only for the patient but for those who administer the medicine and the patient’s loved ones. This is a wonderful read that I thoroughly enjoyed.
BOOK TRAILER:
************
ABOUT DAUGHTERS OF GREEN MOUNTAIN GAP:
An Appalachian granny woman. A daughter on a crusade. A granddaughter caught between the two.
Maggie McCoury, a generational healer woman, relies on family traditions, folklore, and beliefs gleaned from a local Cherokee tribe. Her daughter, Carrie Ann, believes her university training holds the answers. As they clash over the use of roots, herbs, and a dash of mountain magic versus the medicine available in the town’s apothecary, Josie Mae doesn’t know whom to follow. But what happens when neither family traditions nor science can save the ones you love most?
Daughters of Green Mountain Gap weaves a compelling tale of Maggie, Carrie Ann, and Josie Mae, three generations of remarkable North Carolina women living at the turn of the twentieth century, shedding light on racism, fear of change, loss of traditions, and the intricate dynamics within a family. Author Teri M. Brown skillfully navigates the complexities of their lives, revealing that some questions are not as easy to answer as one might think.
************
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Born in Athens, Greece as an Air Force brat, Teri M Brown graduated from UNC Greensboro.
She began her writing career helping small businesses with content creation and published five nonfiction self-help books dealing with real estate and finance, receiving "First Runner Up" in the Eric Hoffman Book Awards for 301 Simple Things You Can Do To Sell Your Home Now, finalist in the USA Best Books Awards for How To Open and Operate a Financially Successful Redesign, Redecorate, and Real Estate Staging Business and for 301 Simple Things You Can Do To Sell Your Home Now, and Honorable Mention in Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award for Private Mortgage Investing.
In 2017, after winning the First Annual Anita Bloom Ornoff Award for Inspirational Short Story, she began writing fiction in earnest, and recently published Sunflowers Beneath the Snow.
Teri is a wife, mother, grandmother, and author who loves word games, reading, bumming on the beach, taking photos, singing in the shower, hunting for bargains, ballroom dancing, playing bridge, and mentoring others.
Teri’s debut novel, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, is a historical fiction set in Ukraine. Learn more at www.terimbrown.com.
LINKS FOR PURCHASE:
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Instagram.com/TeriMBrown_Author
Goodreads.com/terimbrown
Pinterest.com/terimbrownauthor
Youtube.com/@TeriMBrown_Author
Bookbub.com/profile/teri-m-brown
Threads: @terimbrown_author
Sounds good.
ReplyDeleteAdding to your TBR?
Thanks for stopping.
Sounds very interesting
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Mystica.
Delete