After deciding that “granddaughter” would be part of the subtitle for What Leora Never Knew, I began to notice some of my favorite books which are authored by the main characters’ granddaughters.

Three Little Things

by Patti Stockdale

Written as historical fiction, Three Little Things is set during World War I, filled with a fetching cast of characters and borne along by the author’s entertaining sense of humor. The narration reminds us that many folks were suspicious of people with German ancestry during the war, even though they were American citizens and even using the common term “gesundheit,” and that children of German immigrants were drafted to fight against their parents’ former countrymen.

Young Iowa men were trained into soldiering, where there were still rivalries–some about girls back home, some about German sympathies–and sent across to fight the Kaiser’s troops in France. Some didn’t return home, some came back with broken bodies. There is a compelling scene with wounded veterans in a local hospital, at least one scarred on the inside and fighting his own private battle.

This winsome story also carries themes of acceptance, forgiveness, strangers becoming friends, reframing troubles from the past, and reveals a nickname for someone named Shamrock. An engaging story on many levels.

Here’s Patti’s website

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Augusta

by Celia Ryker

Raised on a hard-knock farm in Arkansas and married off to the father of one of her classmates at the age of thirteen, Augusta was not set up for a life of bliss. Then, abandoned by her second husband in 1920s Detroit, with four children to provide for, she is forced into a decision that will haunt her forever.

From the author of Walking Home: Trail Stories, Celia Ryker’s AUGUSTA is historical fiction based on the true story of her grandmother, a woman who lived on a lake and taught her how to catch snakes; a woman who fled the hardships of the Ozarks at the turn of the twentieth century for a new city, and a chance at a better life.

My thoughts: Tired was indeed a woman’s lot in life, when she married at 13, was left by two husbands with several children, and trying to make ends meet during the 1920s. This gritty story is based on the life of the author’s grandmother, Augusta. Much of the early dialogue is in dialect, and later a couple of characters use crude language. I especially enjoyed the Author’s Note at the end, where readers learn which of Augusta’s children is the author’s parent, and how she learned so many details of her grandmother’s difficult life.

Celia Ryker’s website.