Reading in the Garden

 Summer 2021 Quick Picks A mix of recommendations—novels and non-fiction, adults and kids.                                 Here are my most recent reads that I enjoyed. The Girls in the Stilt House  by Kelly Mustian A beautifully written story of two teenage girls involved in a murder in the back swamps of Mississippi and the unravelling of what brought the two strangers together. This book kept calling for me any time I reluctantly had to put it down.  It is an excellent tale of despair, tragedy, and rays of hope for justice in an unjust world. The end had me biting my nails and holding my breath, as the past comes back to haunt the relationship that was forged out of necessity and survival. The Secret Keeper of Jaipur   by Alka Joshi I couldn’t resist returning to Alka Joshi’s rich and vivid India, where once again I was enraptured by the story, the culture, and the end of the book I immersed myself further by cooking her delicious recipes.  A complete delight! This is a sequel to  

  Injustice, Courage, and an Indomitable Spirit. Imagine a husband committing you to an insane asylum just to get rid of you.  That was a common occurrence in the 1800s and since a woman was her husband’s property she had no voice, no recourse.  The doctors signed off on a husband’s request because he was a man after all, so he was considered superior, all-knowing, and all powerful, and the women were tossed in an institution against their will with no way to defend themselves.  That’s what happened to Elizabeth Packard in 1860.     She was too outspoken for her husband who was a PASTOR. She had her own views, her own opinions, and when she started influencing parishioners in a Bible class, she went too far.  It endangered her husband's authority and his sponsorship from an outspoken donor to the church who opposed abolition.  She was treading way too far over her womanly boundaries and had to be stopped.  So he arranged to have her kidnapped and committed to an insane asylum witho