The Water and the Blood

This novel by Nancy E Turner author of "These Is My Words" is a gripping first person tale of Frosty Summers, a west Texas girl, growing up and out of the racial and social confines of her small town. Frosty comes of age at the end of the Great Depression, blooming into womanhood during WWII. Her nickname, Frosty, seems as ill fitting a "sunset woman" as she is later known as her perceptions and "color blindness" are in her Southern Baptist family. Though she desperately wants to find favor with friends of more established and respectable families she is drawn to the black Missionary Way church where "All" are welcome. Throughout the novel Frosty battles with the perceptions she was raised with and following what her heart knows is right. Her journey leads her to California to work in war plane factory and into the arms of her true love. But war, racial tensions, and social moorings pull at her, tearing her from what little happiness she seems able to carve for herself.

"The Water and the Blood" was riveting, thought provoking and thoroughly enjoyable. Nancy Turner tells a tale about race, bigotry, and love through intense vignettes that allow the reader to clearly picture each scene. Her word pictures stand alone without stooping to profanity or pornography to shock the reader or evoke emotion. Each artfully painted vignette draws the reader in and invites them to examine not only this world, but their own. I highly recommend this book and look forward to more from her.