The Violets of March-Sarah Jip

The Violets of March
Sarah Jip
Plume, Apr 26 2011, $15.00
ISBN: 9780452297036

When Emily Wilson was in her twenties, she seemed to own the world. She wrote a bestseller and married a hunk Joel. That was then; a decade later Emily feels rudderless as her two anchors, writing and her spouse, fail her.

Her Great Aunt Bee invites Emily to spend a month on Bainbridge Island, Washington. With nothing to keep her away, she accepts the offer to stay by the sea. Just a half-hour ferry away from Seattle, the island begins to heal Emily’s mental strain so she can begin writing again. The writer finds a red velvet covered diary dated 1943. She reads about the diarist’s angst and sees a parallel to her current situation. Emily begins to feel renewed as the dairy has given new meaning to her life.

Filled with metaphors of life, Sarah Jip provides a fascinating second chance at life tale. Emily is the glue that holds the character driven story line together as she reads the WWII diary while researching what happened to the author and extrapolating the parallels to her present life. Although the action is limited, the support cast is fully developed and the locale wonderful. Readers will enjoy the visit to Bainbridge Island as Emily finds her missing groove.

Harriet Klausner