The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery by Amanda Cox

 

The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery, by Amanda Cox, is a story that drew me in from the first page. Told in several different eras, this story wove easily through the times. Mother, daughter, granddaughter all have secrets and deep wounds that they have hidden, they are thrown together to unravel everything and they learn to care more for each other and forgive the things they never understood. A tale of love, loss, growth and discovering what true love really is. This had me sobbing at the bittersweet end. Truly different than most other books on the market. One to linger with and savor. 

The only thing I didn't like about this book was the glaring mistake of a child's shirt in 1972 with Elmo on it. Elmo wasn't a muppet in 1972. This bothered me as a child of the 70's. 

From the back cover:

Present day. Sarah Ashby returns to her childhood home, determined to finally follow her dream of running the family business alongside her mother and grandmother. So when her mother, Rosemary, announces to her that Old Depot Grocery is closing, Sarah and her grandmother, Glory Ann, make a plan to save the store. But Rosemary has worked her entire life to make sure her daughter never follows in her footsteps. She has her reasons--but she'll certainly never reveal the real one.

1965. Glory Ann confesses to her family that she's pregnant with her deceased fiancé's baby. Pressured into a marriage of convenience with a shopkeeper to preserve her family's reputation, Glory Ann vows to never love again. But some promises are not as easily kept as she imagined.

This dual-time story from Amanda Cox deftly explores the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship, the way the secrets we keep shape our lives and the lives of others, and the healing power of telling the truth.

Amanda Cox is the author of The Edge of Belonging. A blogger and a curriculum developer for a national nonprofit youth leadership organization, she holds a bachelor's degree in Bible theology and a master's degree in professional counseling, but her first love is communicating through story. She lives in Tennessee with her hand and their three children. Learn more at AmandaCoxWrites.com