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I grew up in Texas and married a military officer. It seems I was either packing or unpacking my household for the next few years, but the payoff was a chance to live in a great variety of interesting places. After settling down—back in Texas, of course—I worked in human resources for a while, and finally ended up designing and testing HR computer applications. I had no interest in writing until 2005, when I became a believer in Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. Along with everything else that changed, I developed a passion for writing.
Reviewed by Katelyn Hensel for Readers' Favorite
The last thing Alice ever thought she'd be excited for is becoming a sharecropper. But Alice and Herbert were victims of the 1929 Stock Market Crash that led to the great depression. Herbert's house and farm were foreclosed upon, sending Alice, Herbert, and their young children to the streets and forcing them to rely on their families to survive. But one day, Herbert finds work as a sharecropper and it seems like their prayers have all been answered. But the house is the ugliest place that Alice has ever seen and she's having trouble being grateful for the blessings she's received this Christmas season. Then she meets a new friend who lives near the farm, Victoria, and she begins to learn some hard lessons about how bad the depression is all over the country.
A Sharecropper Christmas is a very short, unromanticized book. It's a story about a struggling family in the historical time known as the Great Depression. This is definitely something that fans of historical fiction will love, and interestingly enough, really resonates with many people today because of the Great Recession that we've been going through over the past 5 to 10 years. Carlene Havel writes with a very simple and direct style that gets the point across while endearing the reader to the characters within the story. There is a strong message of hope, resilience, and family support that draws the characters together beautifully. Carlene Havel has a cool, crisp writing style that leaves nothing to the imagination, so that you see the story clearly spelled out before your eyes. This story is a great Christmas read that would be lovely to curl up with by the fire, particularly for fans of historical fiction or Christmas novellas.
