Roots & Sky

A Journey Home in Four Seasons

 

Published February 2nd 2016

 by Revell  

4 Stars

My Thoughts:

Christine Purifoy has written a book that is considered a memoir`, but for me it was almost like reading someone's  journal.  She takes the reader on journey through her life as she and her husband move due to a career change.  They had purchased an old farmhouse located in Pennsylvania. She has an idea of what she wants, but reality is different from dreams.  She is very honest in both her thoughts and experience by divulging both the good and the bad.  Faith is the center of her life and family.  The messages she receives from reading the bible become very important to her and she shares how she tries implementing this into her life.  

This book is written from the beginning of the move which is in September and she has incorporated this into the story.  Each chapter is named for a month and these are further divided into season, i.e. fall, winter, spring and summer.  

This is a well written story. The author vividly describes Maplehurst, the farmhouse, and the surrounding landscape so vividly that you can picture it in your mind.  She shows both real and raw emotions.  There were several parts of the story that quickly drew me in, like the birth of her fourth child and her ensuing battle with postpartum depression.  This is not a genre that I read very much and I do blame this on the main reason I couldn't quiet get into the entire story.  I think to get to the depth of the story the reader must read slowly.  With all that being said if this is the type of genre you enjoy then I would recommend it.      

*I received this book free from the publisher as part of their bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the  Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, part 255.

Available for Purchase:
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Excerpt:

I first saw the house on a day of record-breaking heat. I suppose

we never choose the day when our dream will come true. Just as

we do not choose the precise place our dream will carry us. This

Victorian, red-brick farmhouse did not look like the home of my

dreams. That first, terribly hot day, it did not feel like it, either.

But my dreams began rearranging themselves almost the moment I

stepped across the smooth, worn stone of Maplehurst’s threshold.

Did Jonathan open the front door first, or did I? I no longer

remember, but I can see again that first glimpse of the dim front

hall with its staircase turning up and out of sight. Before my eyes

adjusted to the darkness, I only sensed the fans that sat moving

heavy air from room to room. Every one of the tall, elegant windows was tightly closed.Having now lived more than a few summers at Maplehurst, the

first of them while heavily pregnant, I know to open the windows

just before heading to bed. In the morning, I step through whatever

cool night air we have managed to trap, and I shut each window

with a heave. These thick brick walls can hold back a heat wave

for three days.But back then I didn’t know a thing about keeping an old house

cool in the summer. What I knew was the artificial hum of the

central air-conditioning in our tropical split-level and the surprising dream that began to visit us in that lonely place. We called it the farmhouse dream, but it was always about so much more than a house. It was a vision of growing roots, cultivating beauty, and opening the doors to neighbors, wanderers, and pilgrims—near

and far. It was a vision of home.

I see now that it was also a vision of heaven on earth. Of course,

that sounds audacious. As if I imagined I might reclaim Eden in a

vegetable patch. Yet all of us have prayed for something like this for

thousands of years. As Jesus taught us, we pray, “Your kingdom

come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

What does the answer to this prayer look like? Just how much

heaven do we get to experience on earth? 
 Meet the Author:





Christie Purifoy (PhD, University of Chicago) has taught literature and composition to undergraduates at the University of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, and the University of North Florida. In 2012, Christie traded the university classroom for a large vegetable garden and a henhouse in southeastern Pennsylvania. She is a regular writer at Grace Table and has contributed essays to numerous websites, including Art House America, A Deeper Story, and many popular blogs. She writes about the beauty, mystery, and wonder that lies beneath the ordinary at her blog, There Is a River.

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