A Sound Among the Trees [Revew]

Title: A Sound Among the Trees
Author: Susan Meissner
Labels: Fiction | Contemporary
Publisher: WaterBrook Multnomah
Publication Date: October 4, 2011
Contains: 1 Intimate scene setting, p. 92
Buy It: Amazon | Book Depository | The Publisher
Book Trailer: Click Here!

My Rating:  ★★★★
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Blurb: As a young bride, Susannah Page was rumored to be a Civil War spy for the North, a traitor to her Virginian roots. Her great-granddaughter Adelaide, the current matriarch of Holly Oak, doesn't believe that Susannah's ghost haunts the antebellum mansion looking for a pardon, but rather that the house itself bears a grudge toward its tragic past.
          When Marielle Bishop marries into the family and is transplanted from the arid west to her husband's home, she is soon led to believe that the house she's just settled into brings misfortune to the women who live there. With Adelaide's richly peppered superstitions and deep family roots at stake, Marielle must sort out the truth about Susannah Page and Holly Oak -- and make peace with the sacrifices she had made for love.
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Let me just start out by saying that A Sound Among the Trees is a fantastic book. Except for one minor scene setting I considered to be inappropriate (p.92), I loved it from start to finish. Marielle is this newly married girl who ends up living in her husband's first wife's childhood home, currently owned by said wife's mother. So on top of being married for the first time, adjusting to living with her husband, Carson, who clearly still clings to remnant memories of his dead wife, and becoming an instant mom to Carson's two kids, she gets to live his mother-in-law. Awkward much?

I loved the history laced into this story. The family home, Holly Oak, has been passed down through generations, all while surviving death, loss, and battles in the Civil War. Quite literally. Everyone in this book seems to have a different take on what the story behind the house really was - everything from cursed, to haunted by Susannah's ghost, to attempting restitution. And poor Marielle gets dragged along for the ride with everyone's crazy stories.

Marielle struggles to find the truth and put the house and it's inhabitants to peace, while shuffling her personal life now-turned-upside-down. My favorite part of this book boiled down to the letters Susannah Page -- supposed traitor/Union symphathizer who allegedly haunts the ancient house -- wrote during the Civil War. Her voice was so natural, even in letters, and true to the time. I absolutely loved finding out her true story and that of the house she lived in. I would recommend this book in a heartbeat!

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review, in exchange for my honest review.