Homeplace

By Dorothy Garlock

Book Overview

Ana is a stranger to the lonesome Iowa farm where she has gone to live after the death of her stepdaughter. She struggles to raise her late stepdaughter's child in a farmhouse filled with danger, but... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446359882
• ISBN13: 9780446359887
• Release Date: April 1991
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 351 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.9" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

I love the Home Place

The characters are so real and the story is amazing. The author leads you through many emotions as you read this story. I love reading the book. It is one you read over again and still be as good as when you first read it.

Homeplace

this is about a defiant stepchild who at 16 gets pregnant and goes to find the father of her child in Iowa. Ana sends Harriet a letter and begs her to come to Iowa for the birth of the child. The conditions at the Iowa home are horrific and Ana dies during the child's birth, the child lives. Ana (who is young) falls in love with Harriet's husband. It is 1885 and there is not much work to be found.

An enjoyable read with a gentle love story

This is the first book that I have read by Dorothy Garlock and I very much enjoyed it. I had picked it not realising that it was sent in Frontier America - a time and place that don't hold any particular interest for me. However, from the first page I was hooked on the story. Ana, a widow, receives a letter from her stepdaughter (just 11 years younger than her, at 16) who ran away to marry the man who had got her pregnant. She summons Ana to attend the birth and thus Ana is thrust into a strange family with all their secrets and problems. Harriet dies in childbirth and Ana promises her at the end that she will bring up the baby, Harry. This binds her to Harriet's husband's family as the baby's father and Harriet's husband, Owen Jamison, won't allow her to leave. His sister, Esther, has treated Harriet abysmally and treats Ana similarly. The story unfolds as we learn about the history of Esther, Owen and their absent brother Paul and the way in which it has bound them together but also caused them huge pain. The writing is excellent, with great period detail about living and working in America of the nineteenth century. There is a gentle love story which is a joy to read, and as the events unfold and we learn that things aren't necessarily as they seem, the resolution is very satisfying. I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to others.

One of the best!

This is the first Garlock book I read and it made me feel like I was actually there. It was one of the most beautiful love stories I had read and Dorothy made me see the west as it was at that time. I could almost taste the foods that were prepared and could see how difficult it was for women of the early west to survive. I own every book that was written by Dorothy Garlock.....she is the best!

Very good!

Dorothy Garlock has written another wonderful book. This one looks at the family dynamics on a small farm in Missouri and the joy one woman brings into an abused family. This is definitly heavier material than in most Garlock books but well worth it.

My Favorite from Dorothy Garlock!

This book is one of my all time favorites.I have reread it many times. The characters engaged me immediately. Because my family farmed in Missouri, the setting of 1880's Iowa captured my imagination. I like that Mrs. Garlock uses characters who have real life afflictions and the main characters have to cope with them; in this book it is mental illness, mental retardation, and teenage rebellion. I also like how the hero has his own personal issues to overcome and is not just the savior for the heroine. The warmth of family life is here too. If you like Dorothy Garlock's books, this will become one of your favorites too.