Customer Reviews

A Burning in Homeland: A Novel

5 star:		(6)
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this is, quite simply, a terrific novel. the book is beautifully written and fun to read. highly engaging plot, steeped in a very romantic southern setting. the characters are well-developed and diverse. the narrative style is very clean and unpretentious. yet this is a very deep book, w/ lots of nuance and subtlety below the surface. this book would be a great choice for book clubs and contemporary literature courses. i think this book will have enduring value.

I just could not put this book down! I read the whole thing from start to finish in one sitting. This book speaks true about so many things, most importantly love, and its consequences. I highly recommend it!

Yancey develops his characters beautifully in this historic Southern tale. This future classic will keep readers entrigued from beginning to end. Anyone who starts this book will find it truly difficult to forgo reading the rest of it. The novel is fraught with rough characters and mundane sorrows. This author's future success is indubitable.

The summer of 1960 in Homeland, Florida would be hot just based on climate, but for several of the townsfolk, relationships turn even more heated. Seven-year-old Shiny Parker observes the Pastor Ned Jefferies nearly burned alive, but that is nothing to what else happens to him that fateful summer when the Preacher's wife and ten year old daughter Sharon Rose take over the lad's home following the inferno. Because he accidentally sees Sharon-Rose naked, Shiny finds himself engaged to the older woman for compromising her. Even that pales next to eye witnessing a murder.

The engaged couple investigates the suspicious fire and soon finds a link to a two decades old murder. Walter Hughes was accused of raping Miss Mavis and her hero Halley Martin defends her honor by killing the accused. Halley and Mavis exchanged letters over the twenty years while he did hard time. Now he is to be freed and a reckoning is a coming as those who participated in the 1940 homicide are coming together for the final act with Shiny as the audience.

A BURNING IN HOMELAND is a strong southern historical novel that works on several levels because of a powerful cast. In some ways this gothic like tale is more of a character study, but Richard Yancey provides a deep gritty atmosphere with plenty action in a taut story line. Shiny with his woes of the world eases some of the tension with his humorous predicaments yet also keeps the powerful plot moving forward. Fans of mid twentieth century southern gothic will want to read this puissant tale.

Harriet Klausner

A romantic yet tradgic tale of love undiscovered. Truly a book you can not put away until you reach the surprising yet fated end. This story works on so many levels you will be thinking about the tale and those wonderful characters long after you turn the last page.

I can't believe this is Mr. Yancey's first novel. It is like nothing I've ever read before, he weaves a great story. I love how the story is half narrated by a character "outside" the main plot. This second perspective makes it like two stories in one. The only complaint I have is that I had hoped the ending would be a little stronger, but I can't complain that much because it is written realistically. This author has tremendous talent!