Book Review-Olivia, Mourning-Yael Politis

I found myself praying for Olivia and Mourning. First as she tried to convince him to help her move to Michigan and farm. Remember--this was a time when wimen were definitely second class citizens. And Mourning was a young black man--Black and white did not mingle in that day and age.

They really were friends and helped each other. Then something happened------

About the Book: (from Amazon)

Olivia wants the 80 acres in far off Michigan that her father left to whichever of his offspring might choose to stake a claim to that land. As Olivia says, “I'm sprung off him just as much as Avis or Tobey.” The problem: she's seventeen, female, and it's 1841. Her childhood friend Mourning Free knows how to work a farm and Olivia has complete trust in him. The problem: he's the orphaned son of runaway slaves and reluctant to travel and work with a white girl. He especially fears the slave catchers who patrol the free states, hunting fugitive slaves. Not without qualms, they set off together. All goes well, despite the drudgery of survival in an isolated log cabin. Incapable of acknowledging her feelings for Mourning, Olivia thinks her biggest problem is her unrequited romantic interest in their young, single neighbor. Then her world falls apart. Strong-willed, vulnerable, and compassionate, Olivia is a compelling protagonist on a journey to find a way to do the right thing in a world in which so much is wrong.

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About the Author: (from Amazon)

I grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, in the house on the cover of Book 3 of the Olivia series, not far from the location of Olivia's farm.

While studying at the Universities of Michigan and Wisconsin, I spent two summers in Israel and ended up coming back to make my life here. Since then I've spent a lot of time traveling between the Middle East and the Midwest, loving both my homes.

While living on Kibbutz Ein Tsurim I learned the story of the Etzion Bloc during the War of Independence -- from people who had lived through it. It was many years before I dared to try to put it down on paper. At that time, fantasies aside, I considered writing nothing more than a hobby.

I did, however, post the beginning of The Lonely Tree on a writers' workshop run by the London Arts Council. There it won a Book of the Year award and Holland Park Press of London asked to see the complete manuscript. Not long afterward I received an email from them. "We want to publish your book." Hey, you never know when a fantasy is going to come true.

For years I had been researching the backdrop for Olivia's story and based many of the details on letters and journals passed down through my family, over seven generations of lives lived in the American Midwest. I also received a great deal of information and insight from my sister Martha, who lived with her husband in a modern log home, hunted her own land, cut her own firewood, and was as independent and stubborn as Olivia. Then self-publishing happened. The prospect of being able to publish that story independently was a great motivator, and I finally completed and published the five books of the Olivia series.

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