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By Jan Karon, The Second in the Mitford Series
Penguin 1995
ISBN: 0-14092545404- Trade Paperback
General Fiction
Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This is the Place
Trilogies can be trying. Books are supposed to have an ending but the author of a trilogy can’t tie up the frayed edges of a story into neat little knots for then who will want to continue to the next? The author faces the same task with the second.
A Light in the Window is the second book in a trilogy my mother lent me. It’s taken me awhile to finish it and now the author, Jan Karon, has taken it clean out of the trilogy category into that of a series. This must be an indication that she knows how to tie knots but not so firmly that a reader doesn’t want to know more about the little village in the Carolinas full of quirky characters of which she writes, even after the story "ends."
Karon’s characters are extremely likeable; she also understands that, if a book can’t have a nice, tight ending then at least it had better have a satisfying premise. "Light," is really about commitment and fear. That makes it a viable choice for most readers, for isn’t this a time when we are all grappling with both of those concepts to one degree or another?
(Carolyn Howard-Johnson is a columnist for the Pasadena Star-News and writes
movie reviews for the Glendale New-Press. She is also the author of This is the Place
a coming-of-age story about a young journalist who finds the courage and vision to
lead a life she had never imagined. The prologue is available by sending
an e-mail to:
carolynhowardjohnson@sendfree.com.)
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