Book Review: Nana's Willow

Fiction

Nana’s Willow

Steven A. Wilkens

Infinity Publishing.com

2007

ISBN: 0-7414-4197-7

Soft cover

183 pages

Five generations of a Kansas farming family are chronicled in Steven A. Wilkens’ latest novel, Nana’s Willow. The book follows the family from 1889 through both World Wars, the Great Depression, Vietnam, and ending with the blossoming of the fifth generation in 1989. This is a story about people, family and lives that bring happiness as well as heart break.

Manny approaches the pretty, petite Betsy after church one Sunday. There is an immediate attraction. It sets the foundation for a beautiful love affair. Although their mothers are initially reluctant, the couple marries four months after their first meeting. Manny and Betsy live with Manny’s parents on one of the two farms his family owns. The couple is happy, but struggles to have a child. Five years pass before they have their first child, Charlie and another six before their daughter, Shannon, makes her entrance. With their family complete, Manny and Betsy weather the troubles that come including the deaths of his father and her mother. During a good phase, Manny plants a willow tree as a birthday gift for Shannon.

Wilkens, author of Tattooed Angels, Coincidental Journey, and other titles, has created characters that readers will fall hard for. The Monroes and their neighbors are decent people with the kind of work ethic that has diminished with each generation. There is an innocence and purity about these people that encourages hope and belief in perseverance and the power of love.

When exposure to the Spanish Flu takes the lives of Manny, Betsy, and Charlie, Shannon is left to manage the farms with the assistance of her aging grandmother, Maude. As Shannon works the land of her people, she suffers through a short, painful marriage all the while continuing to pine for the neighbor boy she grew up with. Jimmy pushed Shannon away after being disfigured in a house fire, but eventually, love brings them together. While this is primarily a story of family, it is also a tale of romance in the raw. There is no glamour in the love that Shannon and Jimmy or Manny and Betsy share; no deception. Life is the frequent enemy that the lovers partner to combat.

Nana’s Willow is a simple, beautiful story about real love, strong families, and an enduring legacy.

Melissa Levine

For Independent Professional Book Reviewers