Fiction Review

Raising Sand
by Betty Davenport Tesh
ISBN-10: 1594537887
Review by Heather Froeschl

Raising sand means to stir up trouble, and like it or not, 65 year old Kate Porter is about to raise some sand. It all begins quite innocently; when her sister, Emmaline, makes the suggestion that now that Kate is retired she should be available to look after their mother and her sister, Aunt Beam. They've been living alone and little things here and there have suggested that they probably shouldn't be.

So Kate goes "home" to stay awhile. Home is Bliss County, North Carolina, where everybody knows everybody and everybody's business is everybody else's. And it's a good thing too or else William Henry and Luther wouldn't have noticed that Darrell Billips hid his car behind the garage. And then there wouldn't have been an investigation, AKA snooping, into why the county commissioners were sneaking around and not allowing the Democratic Process to run their meetings.

Kate has gotten a whole lot more involved in her hometown than just carting Aunt Beam places and making sure her Mama takes her pills. She's become a political activist, and what's more is that she's become reacquainted with a boy she nearly held hands with in high school. What is to become of her quiet life? What is to become of Bliss County?

This wonderful tale, "Raising Sand," by Betty Davenport Tesh, is a breath of fresh air. Small town America does still exist, thanks to folks like Kate Porter and Aunt Beam. And thanks to Betty Davenport Tesh we can all enjoy a glimpse at it. The writing here is down home good and will leave readers hankering for a pork barbecue sandwich and a road trip down south.