Tempest Rising by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Thursday Thirteen

I thought I'd focus on Tempest Rising, a book I just finished, and wait a week on my favorite music from my teenage years.

Thirteen Things I Learned From Tempest Rising

1. It's written by an author I hadn't read before, Diane McKinney-Whetstone

2. The main setting is west Philadelphia, 1965.

3. The first part of the book deals with the beautiful and fragile, Clarise, who is orphaned and raised by four loving and very eccentric aunts and uncles

4. Clarise elopes with a young man, Finch, and the two start a catering business together.

5. The business does extremely well! They have three daughters: Shern, Victoria and Bliss, and they buy a large home in a well-to-do neighborhood

6. Instead of helping them, repeal of the Jim Crow laws hurts them. Their previously loyal customers flock to larger mass caterers. Finch becomes nearly bankrupt.

7. Finch loses his life in the first "tempest rising", trying desperately to save his business. His widow, Clarice, breaks down emotionally and has to be hospitalized.

8. Because of an old vendetta and an old criminal charge, the daughters are placed in a real horror of a foster home.

9. The next part of the book focuses mostly on Ramona, the seemingly mean and cold hearted daughter of the very dysfunctional foster mother, Mae.

10. The three daughters suffer abuses and neglect while staying in that foster home.

11. During the second "tempest rising", the girls run away from the foster home in a dangerous snow storm.

12. I liked the book a lot but felt it was a bit overly dramatic.

13. Reading Tempest Rising fit these book challenges: