Gina Rae Mitchell

The Unveiling of Polly Forrest by Charlotte Whitney | $50 Giveaway, Review, Guest Post, & Excerpt | #HistoricalFiction #Mystery

A book blog tour from Goddess Fish Promotions.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Marianne & Judy at Goddess Fish for providing me with the information for this tour.

Book Details

The Unveiling of Polly Forrest: A Mystery by Charlotte Whitney
Published by Lake William Press on 03/15/2022
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Format: eBook, Paperback
Pages: 321

Rural Michigan, 1934

When new husband Sam perishes in a bizarre farm accident, would-be milliner Polly soon becomes the prime suspect in his murder. As she digs for evidence to clear her name, Polly falls into a sinister web implicating her in a nefarious crime ring being investigated by White House Police. Polly’s life and those of her family are at stake.

Narrated by Polly, her self-righteous older sister, Sarah, and Sarah’s well-meaning, but flawed husband Wesley, a Methodist minister, the story follows several twists through the landscape of the rural Midwest.

Source: Goddess Fish Promotions, NetGalley, Received from the author or publisher for review.

 

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Excerpt from The Unveiling of Polly Forrest

I was given the choice of an excerpt from each of the three narrators. While Wesley is not what I would consider the star of the story, he plays a significant role. I did find this to be one of the most moving speeches from the book so I’m happy to share it with you today.

Reverend Wesley Johnson

Sunday, June 24, 1934

This morning, finding myself at the pulpit I looked down at the congregation, I no longer felt rancor about our family’s current situation. I told Willard’s story veiled in anonymity, his mother being too ill to attend church, anyway. I mentioned the problems in my own family and the unknowns we are facing. Somewhere in the sermon, I recited the list of sick members and the fact that right now almost all of us were facing challenges we’d never anticipated.

I remarked how we all wanted to be facing decisions about whether to electrify our houses and put in an indoor bathroom. Instead, we were facing decisions about how long we could hold on, whether we’d lose our crops if rain didn’t come, what we’d eat this winter if our gardens didn’t produce and what we’d do if we lost our farms. I don’t think anyone expected me to be this specific about our collective worries.

“Lord, lift these worries from us. Lift them high above us. Lord, lift these worries from us.”

Next, I asked everyone to take a minute and count their blessings.

 “Instead of focusing on what we don’t have this morning, think about what we do have and be thankful. What are you happy about today?”

“I need an hour,” my friend John Newson piped up. Everyone laughed.

 By the time we started our last hymn, “Joyful, Joyful,” there was a smile on every face, including mine.

Excerpt provided by the author/publisher for use in this post.

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Purchase Links for The Unveiling of Polly Forrest

Amazon – OneLink for every country   

Bookshop/IndieBound     Kobo

AppleBooks/iTunes     The Book Depository     Blackwell’s

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My thoughts on The Unveiling of Polly Forrest

Charlotte Whitney penned a riveting tale set in rural Michigan during the Great Depression. It provides incredible details of farm life during a difficult time in American history.

Polly wears many veils during this story. She is often pretty, pampered, princess Polly in her younger years. When she faces the decision to return East with her mother to care for her aging grandmother, she opts for a hasty marriage to the older, seemingly wealthy, Sam. But, life is not what she expected and the veils are slowly removed to show many other sides of poor, panicked, practical, and perturbed Polly.

The story is told from three viewpoints; Polly, her older sister Sarah, and Sarah’s husband Wes, a Methodist minister. You might even consider the letters Polly and Sarah write to be unreliable narrators of the events.

The children and locals in the area create richness and add details that bring the story to life. There are so many layers to Polly and the story. They are slowly peeled away to reveal threads of the story that touch on spousal abuse, infidelity, counterfeiting, mobsters, spiritual issues, and of course sibling rivalry.

The story was very well-written, as I expected from Ms. Whitney. It grabbed my attention in the opening pages and held it until the satisfying end. I highly recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction, mysteries, and characters with depth and flaws.

 

Thank you to NetGalley, Charlotte Whitney, and Goddess Fish Promotions for providing me with a digital copy. This review is my honest, unbiased opinion.

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I love my Amazon Kindle Unlimited Subscription. So many books, so little time!

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Guest Post from Charlotte

Wes, A Character Interviews the Author Charlotte

One of three narrators in The Unveiling of Polly Forrest, the Reverend J. Wesley Johnson interviews his creator, author Charlotte Whitney

Wes: Why did you decide to make me a Methodist minister?
Author: I wanted to create a likable but flawed character who does his level best to serve his congregation during an extremely difficult period of history, the Great Depression. You are one of the many Midwest Methodist ministers/farmers who have a church but also till the soil in order to make a living. As a matter of fact, my husband’s grandfather was a Methodist minister/farmer in southern Illinois during the Depression. It wasn’t an easy life, maintaining a farm while performing the duties of a minister.

Wes: Flawed? You said that I’m flawed. In what way?
Author: Wes, you shouldn’t have to ask that. You’re married to Sarah and have three children, yet you are obsessed with her younger sister Polly. You find yourself embraced in a passionate kiss and begin thinking about getting a divorce. Your readers all want to shake some sense into you.

Wes: Well, I must have some redeeming qualities.
Author: Of course, you do. All you have to do is ask John Newsom, your best friend, how you’ve impacted the community, individual by individual. Every week you struggle to write an uplifting sermon to deliver to your parishioners, people who are scared they’ll lose their farms and have to move to tent cities and slowly die of starvation.

Wes: Why did you write a scene where John and I were digging a hole for a new outhouse? That seems demeaning for a servant of God.
Author: Wes, no one else was going to dig it. The old one was full and you’re a practical, hard-working man. As a matter of fact, you like the rhythms of farm life and the physical labor of digging into the soil. That was simply one more job that you took on to serve your congregation.

Wes: Why did you have me officiate at the funeral of Polly’s husband?
Author: Wes, he was one of your parishioners. It was your obligation, even though it was a difficult task. You took on the role willingly, even though it wasn’t easy.

Wes: Why did you rewrite my sex scene with Polly making it instead, simply a long passionate kiss.
Author: Because, dear Wes, it just didn’t move the story along. You were destined to stay with your wife, and the readers would have felt it was just gratuitous sex if I’d left it in. In fact, a couple of beta readers said so.

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Purchase The Unveiling of Polly Forrest online from a local bookstore.

Amazon – OneLink for every country

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Giveaway!

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Official Tour Page

Full Tour Schedule:

May 17: Christine Young
May 19: The Avid Reader
May 24: Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews
May 26: Momma Says: To Read or Not to Read
May 31: Fabulous and Brunette

June 2: All the Ups and Downs
June 7: Candrel’s Crafts, Cooks, and Characters
June 9: Hope. Dreams. Life… Love
June 14: Author C.A.Milson
June 16: Harlie’s Books
June 21: Jazzy Book Reviews
June 23: The Mystery Section
June 28: Long and Short Reviews
June 30: The Faerie Review

July 12: Archaeolibrarian – I Dig Good Books!
July 14: BooksChatter
July 19: So Many Books
July 21: Gina Rae Mitchell – review
July 26: Cover To Cover Cafe
July 28: Author Deborah A. Bailey Blog

August 2: Our Town Book Reviews – review only
August 4: The Obsessed Reader
August 9: Reading With a Llama
August 11: Stormy Nights Reviewing & Bloggin’
August 16: fundinmental
August 18: Westveil Publishing
August 23: Novels Alive
August 25: Independent Authors
August 30: Iron Canuck Reviews & More – review only
September 1: Straight From the Library

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