Dovetail
By
Karen McQuestion
"I've long believed that no one should be judged on the worst thing they've ever done. And not on the best thing, either, for that matter." "Human beings are much more complex than one event that happened on one day in a very long life." Pearl has reached the end of her very long life and has lived with guilt, regrets, sorrow and pain. What secrets is she keeping and why is it so hard to reveal them?

The characters in the book are people that any of us could know and could relate to. They have emotions and traits that are individual in what makes their personalities. I loved John and Alice. Such caring, loving, and unselfish characters. I loved Joe and Katherine. Their story was one of an immediate attraction to each other but built as they worked to discover the connections from the past to the present. There were characters I disliked the whole book. Then there was Pearl. She had me on both ends of the likeable spectrum. I found myself despising her and then forgiving her. This worked so perfectly to create the story.

This book has suspense, drama, secrets, mystery, tragedy and foreboding. It also has compassion, devotion, forgiveness, hope and love. Love that can transcend time and space. The way it's all brought together in the pages had me turning them, each chapter building, to find out how it was going to all end.

I have yet to pick up a Karen McQuestion book that I have not liked. This book is no exception. In fact, I loved it! It's complex but written so adroitly that the plot and characters are easily followed and built up as the story goes. The uniqueness of the dual time lines and building the parallel stories until they merge is page turning anticipation. Karen McQuestion has created a book that is like the dovetail joints her title is named after. She takes each of the characters and designs them to perfectly fit with the characters they are joined to. Then she builds the story, chapter and event from 1916 to the parallel chapter and events in 1983. Each revealing more as to what really happened in 1916 that Pearl has held secret for all those years. The story starts to link together just as dovetail joints slip together to create a beautiful piece of work when it's finished. "A dovetail joint can stand the test of time."

This is a wonderfully detailed and crafted book. Written in such a wonderful way that the story unfolds in perfect synchronization. A novel that I thoroughly enjoyed from the beginning to the end. I want to thank the author, Karen McQuestion, for the honor of reading an ARC of this fantastic book. All opinions and thoughts are my heartfelt own. It is definitely a five star read for me.