A beautiful and haunting southern literary novel, which will evoke laughter and tug at your heartstrings. I’m eagerly awaiting the continuation of the Virginia Kate sagas Kim Michele Richardson author, The Unbreakable Child
Kat Magendie's TENDER GRACES is a thoroughly enjoyable, big, family saga. Filled with rich language, and down-home wisdom, Kat's tale will leave you charmed, seduced, and fully satisfied by a cast of offbeat, lovable characters. Don't miss this one! Barbara Quinn, author of 36C, Slings and Arrows, The Speed of Dark
Print Publication's Reviews
A force of lyrical storytelling . . . Some of the most poignant passages in literature are uttered by children: Tom Sawyer, Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Ree Dolly in Daniel Woodrell’s Winter Bone — all are juvenile protagonists who relate the events of their lives with candor. Perhaps Kathryn Magendie gave her child protagonist a narrator’s “voice” because when a children address us, they usually speak with unabashed honesty, relating without guile, the anguish of growing up in a families shattered by either alcoholism, mental illness or divorce. In Kathryn Magendie’s Tender Graces, spunky, little Virginia Kate Carey must cope with all three...for the rest of the review, read it in The Smoky Mountain News, or read online at Smoky Mountain News online.
Magendie’s novel is the fictional biography of Virginia Kate Carey. The story unfolds partly in retrospective, but mostly in the present tense, first-person voice of Virginia Kate. She is the daughter of a wild yet beautiful West Virginia mountain woman, Katie Ivene Holmes, and the Shakespeare-quoting, kitchen-tool-peddling Texan, Frederick Hale Carey, who comes to the cabin where she lives. It’s the 1950s and Frederick is trying to sell pots and pans. He talks to Katey Ivene’s mother, but it’s the daughter that catches his eye. This is a novel of family, both good and bad, and what can happen when people allow their personal desires to overwhelm their concern for their children. It’s a well-told story that would almost, but not quite, fit in the Young Adult category. It’s a good book for older teens and adults...for the rest of the review, read it in the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper, or read it online at 2theadvocate.com/books
Kathryn Magendie, a West Virginia woman who came to Western North Carolina via South Louisiana, shows why plot is just the wheels of a narrative vehicle. Without voice, character, poetry and detail also, all you've got is a go-kart. In her debut novel, “Tender Graces,” Magendie builds up the plot — a prodigal daughter story — into a sustained entertainment through an exuberant mountain portrayal. Virginia Kate Carey, Magendie's heroine, comes home to her holler to get her mother's ashes. Her grandmother's spectral voice and inherited diary guide her through a remembering process, and the supernatural and secondhand elements yield to something more immediate. “Tender Graces” provides a seat at the all-too-real Carey table....for the rest of the review by Rob Neufeld, read the Asheville Citizen Times or read the review online at The Asheville Citizen Times online.
Magendie has done a masterful job of weaving family tragedies into a fabric that supports the story of how they survive a brutal childhood... read the review in The Moutaineer Publishing Company's The Guide in Western North Carolina, or click to read Online Here.
A small sampling of Blogger Buzz & Online Reviews
This is an intriguing family saga that grips the audience due to the changing voice of the narrator from a seemingly innocent naive little girl to an adult woman trying to free herself when she frees her late mom. The cast is fully developed as the audience can subtly understand the maturing of the three children especially the daughter who tells the drama of a beautiful volatile mom seemingly larger than life and the more stable than the raging dad. Their wars before the split never left their three offspring as the child is the adult. Fans will enjoy this deep look at a dysfunctional family in the 1950s, 60s and 70s . . . Harriet Klausner, For the rest of the review, see
Midwest Book Reviews
Some of the most poignant passages in literature are uttered by children: Tom Sawyer, Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Ree Dolly in Daniel Woodrell’s Winter Bone - all are juvenile protagonists who relate the events of their lives with candor. Perhaps Kathryn Magendie gave her child protagonist a narrator’s “voice” because when a children address us, they usually speak with unabashed honesty, relating without guile, the anguish of growing up in a families shattered by either alcoholism, mental illness or divorce. In Kathryn Magendie’s Tender Graces, spunky, little Virginia Kate Carey must cope with all three... For the rest of the review, click Holler Notes
This is one of those wonderfully written books that tell a tale of families that are often times a bad mix, sometimes even poisonous to each other, but somehow manage to pull through with a deep and abiding love for each other - even when it's not deserved... for the rest of the reveiw, go go: Dew on the Kudzu A Southern Ezine
Ms. Magendie guides the reader down this mountain path with humor, eloquence, and darn good storytelling. This first time author can expertly handle a phrase. What could be a mundane task carried out by a character is full meaning. The characters in the story are rich and colorful. Even when they drop by for a short visit you will remember them after you turn the page, and turn the page you will. I smiled and cried as I was drawn into their lives hoping for the best and fearing the worst...for the rest of the review, go to Eyes On the Page
Tender Graces is about memory and what Tony Morrison called thick love, which is both present and past, both filling Virginia Kate Carey’s today and dissipating like ashes of yesterdays. The protagonist, Virginia Kate returns to her old house in the Smokey Mountains to find it empty and yet pregnant with the past. Although the setting of Tender Graces is local, its appeal blows the borders of the South to such an extent that even a double foreigner like me (to the place and the local lingo) feels at home in the prose. I could repeat all the praise that Magendie’s other reviewers have painted, but I feel it deserves much more than a cursive review that does not recreate any of the rich textures and aspects of the novel..for the rest of the review, go to Under the Midnight Sun, author Adnan Mahmutovic's book review site.
Tender Graces is a complex novel of powerful characters in exotic settings wrestling with life's relentless and all too puzzling demands. It is by turns horrifying and exhilarating, hilarious and all too real. It has one of the most unlikely heroes in modern fiction. I know you've heard that before, but this hero isn't a ghost or a man from Mars, it is a woman who emerged from her own troubled past and became through her own efforts a normal human being. Normal in a clinical, not a statistical sense. A woman whose very normalcy transforms, and challenges, all the other characters in the novel. And maybe the reader as well. [...] Despite its appearance, Tender Graces is not a woman's book, at least not exclusively. It is a very adult book in which very real characters wrestle with life's complexities and come to their own conclusions....for the rest of the review, go to Barry's An Explorer's View of Life
Tender Graces is one of those books which stays in mind even after you put it down. One doesn't wish the book to end at all. One is with Virginia Kate right from the beginning reliving her saga at every moment. This book begins with the mountains of West Virginia and in a way ends there. Virginia Kate does find a home in the swamps of Louisana and also frees herself from the burdens of love for her momma, Katie Ivene. In a way the setting is a metaphor for the turbulent feelings within Virginia Kate, and her brothers Micah and Andy for their momma. [...] With beautiful setting, strong characters, Magendie has written a very good book. One of the best books I read so far. One simply resennts it when it ends. For the rest of the review, see Everything Distils into reading, by Gautami Tripathy
In my very young 61 years as a fine arts painter and poet I have read many books. " Tender Graces" by Kathryn Magendie is by far one of the finest novels that I have ever read. Kathryn has the unique ability to meld prose with poetry in a manner that is most pleasing and very artistic in portraying the terrible yet touching beauty of life. While reading "Tender Graces" one is transported not only to another time but also to a real world lush with unforgetable characters bound in a wealth of experiences. " Tender Graces " holds a very special place on my night stand and will be the only book there for a good long time. I more than highly recommend " Tender Graces " as it is a must read novel...Stephen Craig Rowe, The Painting Studio.
[Tender Graces] had me spellbound. I had a hard time putting it down. Tender Graces is author, Kathryn Magendie’s first novel. I can’t believe this is Ms. Magendie’s first book. I can’t wait to see how Kathryn Madendie tops Tender Graces.... ~for more go to Cheryl's Book Nook
Virginia Kate Carey has come home to West Virginia to release her mother’s ashes to the wind, but the feral Katie Ivene will not be laid to rest so gently. Powerful as a hurricane roaring through the lives of her husband and three children, Katie Ivene left an alcoholic trail of emotional devastation in her path, because when she loved, she loved magnificently, and when she hated, she hated fiercely. Virginia Kate’s only hope to bury her mother and her memories is to set free the words that will tell their story, and she does so with aplomb... ~for more go to: BookLove-A Place to Share Books
It's so rare these days to get your hands on a book that not only captures your imagination and attention, it imprisons your heart. You know the kind I mean? The sort of book with characters who take root in your soul and never leave....the kind with such a unique author's voice, you anxiously start searching for more by that author? I've been blessed to have found such a book. The title is TENDER GRACES .... ~for more go to Author Deb Leblanc's From a Green Porch Swing
In the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Graces is a moving tale told through the unfiltered thoughts of a young girl. Unfortunately, Virginia Kate Carey and her siblings have no Atticus Finch to usher them through the ups and downs of childhood. As the adult Virginia Kate struggles to reconcile painfully conflicted feelings about her dead "Momma," the young Virginia Kate, "Seestor" as her brothers call her, tells the story of the confused, at times tormented, adults in her life, who often reverse rolls with their children. The only fairly steady figure is stepmother Rebekha, and even she is riddled with self-doubt and requires bolstering from VK at times. ~For the rest of the review, go to Cross Reference, A book Review Blog
What I liked about the book (beside the beautiful writing) the most are the characters, not just one or two, but all of them. I didn't necessarily like all of them personally but the way they were written it was just so easy to picture them. There is quite a cast of characters, too. It was so easy to feel their pain, sense of hopelessness, self doubt, happiness and a host of other emotions. The plot line is also excellent as are the descriptions. Ms. Magendie certainly knows how to make her readers empathize with the characters....for the complete review, see Kaye's Pudgy Penquin Perusals
What did stay with me throughout the novel was Magendie’s vivid and gifted sense of setting. As evidenced in the first quote I included above, the mountains of West Virginia shape and hold the protagonist just as the swamps of Louisiana free her later. I’ve been lucky enough to visit both places, and thoroughly enjoyed returning through the pages of this novel. However, if I had edited this novel… I would have developed the parts about the grandmother deeper....for the rest of the review read Book Club Classics.
What can i say? This book was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. I didn’t want it to end, i wanted to keep reading , to follow the rest of Virginia Kates life. I wanted to hug Virginia Kate and tell her everything will be ok and i wanted to slap Katie for destroying their kids life. I also wanted to slap their dad too and throw every bottle of booze in the garbage... My Blog About Books
I couldn't put this book down; it had me at page 1. Kathryn Magendie was able to give me mind pictures so I felt like I was right there in the midst of the story breathing it all in. I was Virginia Kate; I could feel what she was feeling. I could see what she was seeing. When Virginia Kate was moved to Louisiana, I could feel the sticky wetness of the air. I felt her conflicted feelings towards her stepmother-the wanting to accept this woman who cared for her and yet not feel like she was being disloyal to her Momma. For anyone who has grown up with a parent who has personal issues, they can feel the conflict one has between the natural love one has for the parent and hate for the person the parent has become because of those issues. I can't wait to see what issue Magendie tackles in her next novel. ---
ReadingQueen
http://www.bellebooks.com
