Reviews

The Rosewood Casket by Sharyn McCrumb

zombiefied35's review

4.5

My grandmother said this was good. She always gives the best recommendations.

tabithar's review

4.0

Read in 2007.

nocto's review

Magic stuff. I forget how good a writer McCrumb is between books. She weaves history and culture and the real past together with a fictional present and comes up with unputdownable stories that become tales not just of a few characters but of the whole society of Appalachia.

This is the story of what happens when old man Randall Stargill is dying and his four sons and their partners gather at the family farm in the mountains to carry out his last wish, to build him the rosewood casket of the title. It's much less of a mystery than the earlier books in the series have been but it's the best imagined story of the series yet.

aly_p's review

2.0

2.5. A story of fractured families and the conflict between ideas of land ownership and wilderness. Could have been a great read if written with a lighter and less worthy touch.

dsmagacz's review

1.0

Not worth reading. Very predictable.

tlsouthard's review

4.0

I enjoyed this book very much. An interesting story about an old man dying, his four sons coming back home for his death and funeral, and everything else that happens. It was good to run into Sheriff Arrowood and Deputy LeDonne again.

The author does a good job of weaving the past and present together, revealing just a little at a time. It keeps you reading on to find out "just one more thing". A quick read because of that.

I would recommend.

bookharlot's review

2.0

2.5 stars. Ok but nothing special.

mimima's review

4.0

When I intellectually look at this series, I'm not sure why they are such satisfying reads (although, oddly, the even ones more than the odd numbered ones, so far), but I just love the evocation of the area, the people, and the intertwining lives.

becklabeck's review

4.0

I don't think I ever would have known about this book had I not been gifted it by my lovely aunt. Despite my ignorance of the author or her Ballad series, I was immediately pulled in by the spellbinding prose and the intriguing cast of characters. The story follows an intertwining group of past and present residents of a small mountain town in Tennessee. Four sons come back together at their father's deathbed, poor farmers struggle to hold onto what is theirs, and old secrets are slowly brought to light. The drama was a slow burn, but enough to keep me glued to the pages wondering what would happen next. The characters were interesting, each with their own quirks and personalities, though I do think they could have been fleshed out a little more, and it was entertaining to see them all interacting. The copy I have, which I'm assuming is a recent print since it came straight from Amazon, had a few glaring mistakes that irritatingly brought me out of the story. I always wonder why I catch these things but the dozens of rounds of editing pre-print do not. Anyway, typos aside, I found this to be a truly spellbinding homage to history and land. Would recommend to lovers of mountain mysteries.

kimmerp's review

Read this for my murder mystery book club and read it only because I felt I needed to finish. This is really an Appalachian family story and no real mystery. A couple people in my book club LOVED this book, but the story lacked any tension and driving interest and the characters were blah. The sense of place and of a crumbling historical timeline are great themes, but cannot make up for pendantic writing.