Whispers from the Ash by Patricia Hester review

I snagged Whispers... as a Kindle freebie when a friend of mine told me there was a book set in the area of Centralia, PA (though I do not recall there being a direct reference to that town in particular). It was actually set near Wilkes-Barre, in an area referred to as Giant's Despair. It was very interesting, seeing as I like about an hour or so from that area, so many of the places, rivers, etc, in the book, were familiar. Underground fires have been burning for decades in the anthracite coal veins under Giant's Despair. It's known as the Red Ash fire, and it's apparently still burning to this day.

That section of Pennsylvania relied heavily on coal mining, and with that trade came all of the perils associated with it. While based in history, this book is a fictional account, a coming-of-age type story, told by Molly, who ranges in age from five to fourteen (from what I could gather, it was a little hard to tell) during the course of the book. She works through a heart-wrenching and intriguing heap of tragedy, travail and family secrets, in addition to the encroaching danger of the underground fires that threaten their family home.

Some of the information in the book, in reference to family members, is a little confusing; I picked-up on who is related to whom and how about midway through the book, though I wish I hadn't had to be distracted by that bit of confusion for so far into the book. The ending was a little bit of a letdown, too-- it ties up a loose end/conflict, but doesn't let on about anything into the future. Most of the book reads so much like a memory, that to just leave the reader hanging, with no general closure to everything that's going on in the story...well... at least the rest of the story makes-up for that.



/ [Ms. Steel]

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