Wow! What a good book! I recommend it. This book is really interesting. It begins with a mystery from back more than 80 years ago that is now affecting the relations today. Dove Jarrod was born and raised in the Pritchard Mental Hospital where her mother resided. She lived there until her teens when she ran away. Later, when Dove grew up, she became a faith healer. But was she really? Did she actually have the gift of healing or was she a charlatan? Her grand daughter Eva Chandler now must find out, and find out what happened to Dove and the missing valuable coin she was alleged to have. Her grand daughter Eva has three days to do this.

Emily Carpenter's books draw me in immediately. I feel a connection to the characters and I have to know how their stories play out. This one unraveled bit by bit beautifully. Fantastic read!

This story grabbed me from the prologue—a dying old woman facing her past. I just had to find out more about her life!

I've read several other books by Emily Carpenter and have always loved the suspense and drama that she puts into her stories. This one did not disappoint. There was plenty of intrigue, secrets, good, and evil to make this a a page-turner that you will race to get through, while not wanting it to end.

I had not read the companion novel to this one, Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, so I did go back and read that one before I started Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters. You wouldn't have to, to enjoy this story but I'm glad I did, just to get a little bit of the back story of some of the characters.

Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters was an exciting read and I'm always thrilled to start one of Emily's books. This one is one of her best!

Let me start by saying I am a huge Emily Carpenter fan. This book started off amazing -- my only criticism is that she lost me a little halfway through -- but then ends it beautifully!! If I hadn't read any of her previous books I may have given up -- but since I knew the ending was going to be worth it -- I kept going. It wasn't my favorite book by her but I will always read her books.

The bestselling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls returns to uncover a faith healer’s elusive and haunted past.

Burying the Honeysuckle Girls was my first book by Emily Carpenter and I loved it. I’ve read a few since but not until this one have I felt the same feelings I did reading Honeysuckle Girls.

This book is Dove’s story. From when she was just a young child living in Prichard Institute to her death many years later. There is so much going on in this story and I want to be very careful to not give anything away.

It’s told from two timelines. Past and present. Ruth/.Dove’s story is the past and her granddaughter, Eve’s, is the present. Ruth/Dove escaped the institute. From there she did what it took to survive. She became a nurse of sorts later for an old man and became his granddaughter, Bruna’s, best friend. They could sing and have voices like angels. They sang for evangelicals and made lots of money during the depression. The depression is not what this book is about by the way. It’s about family. Friendships. Love. Loss.

Ruth was in love with a boy, Dell. He was the love of her life actually. She didn’t get to see much of him though and eventually went on to marry a man named Charles. He was a traveling preacher. I like to think that she eventually did fall in love with him. He seemed to be a kind man to her. Ruth/Dove had a hard life in many ways but was also very lucky in other ways. She had a daughter, yet it seems she was not the best mom to her. I think Ruth/Dove tried. At least that is the feeling I got from her. I felt sorry for her when reading her part of this story. The way men treated women even in the thirties was horrible. Dove though really had a good life considering she was taken away from all the bad finally. Her and Charles Jarrod traveled. They were evangelicals and it seems they had some morals. At least some. He seemed to care about her from what was told in this story.

Eve, Ruth/Dove’s granddaughter does not like the work her grandmother did. She believes it was all fake. But her mother and brother both are big believers and she does what she has to to keep them happy and on track. After her grandmother’s death her mom decides to carry on the family business and Eve has to help. At least for a while.

There are many ups and downs in this book. Told from two different timelines you get a sense of past and present and how they will merge to solve a big mystery in Eve’s life. She goes through a whole lot to solve this mystery and takes you along with her. From her life being in peril to finding out more about her grandmother than she ever knew she keeps on going. Nothing can stop her. She helps people along the way too. Falls for a guy and I’d like to think finds her own happiness.

This is a very heartwarming, edge of your seat in parts, sad, tragic and forgiving story. One that will stick with you.

Thank you to #NetGalley, #EmilyCarpenter, #LakeUnion for this ARC. This is my own thoughts about this book.

5/5 stars and a high recommendation. If you read Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, you will love this one too.

A southern gothic novel that weaves the past and the present seamlessly.
Eve’s grandmother Dove was a famous evangelist, although Eve knows the truth her grandmother was a con artist and that never sat well with Eve.
Eve works for her deceased grandmothers foundation doing good to help atone for the bad things Dove did or didn’t do?
This book hooked me from page one and I couldn’t put it down.

This is my first book by this author, although truth be told her previous novel is already on my kindle to read.

Really enjoyed this story of the evangelical Dove Jarrod and her granddaughter Eve Chandler. Those revivals 'back in the day' must have been a hoot! Love the dual timelines, 1934 to present day. Easy to follow. Author did great with character development. Well written, a page turner. Thank you, NetGalley, Emily Carpenter and Lake Union Publishing for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my goodness!!! This was such an excellent story of trusting what you believe and listening to your heart! Good vs evil and learning to forgive the trespasses of others....can you heal yourself first?

Annie was born in the Pritchard insane asylum and has never lived anywhere else. She's 12, almost 13, and has two friends....just two....It's time for Annie to take control of her life before Pritchard and it's evil consumes her. As she takes her chances, she says a small prayer that she'll see Del and the Major again. So Annie becomes Ruth, her real name and adopts the surname Davidson.

At this point Ruth's story divides into two parts, the truth of her adventures before becoming Dove Jarrod, miracle healer and the story she has always told her family and friends of her journey to fame. As part of Dove's estate, she has left money and instructions to refurbish and expand the old Pritchard asylum, turning it into a hospital and refuge for women and children. As the CEO of the Charles and Dove Jarrod ministry, Dove's granddaughter will commission a documentary of her grandmother's life. What she finds and the journey on which it takes her makes a wonderful story. Emily Carpenter gave the characters so much depth that as the story unwinds, you want to warn them or cheer them on. And then the story gets better.....oh, WOW.

Simply....Read this book!

I've read all of Emily Carpenter's previous books EXCEPT for the book that is related to this one (Burying the Honeysuckle Girls), but fear not, this is completely a standalone and while I'm sure the experience would be enhanced having read the previous book, it's not necessary. I found the mystery and the historical part of this story really interesting, and loved the author's work in slowly revealing connections and links between past and present. This is a lush Southern story and very enjoyable.

I really tried to get into this novel but I had a difficult time. Connecting with the characters. I felt the story lines were choppy. I also felt that while the story was believable there was something that just didn't quite click to make it realistic enough for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Alternating between the past and present, Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters takes us into the world of the big religious tent revivals and the characters that inhabited them. Eve knows what the truth her grandmother told her and she gets thrown into the center of it when she is attacked and told to get a coin that her grandmother supposedly had. Her grandmother Dove was quite the character. I kept seeing like a spunky Annie Oakley type. She did whatever she had to do to escape the asylum she was in and did anything it took to survive in the world.

I enjoyed the story and the way it moved through both times. I might have enjoyed the past a little bit more than the present, but they both worked very well together. I love a story with strong women especially when like Eve, they discover just how strong they really are.

Thanks to Netgalley and Lake Union for a copy of this book.

I give this book a strong 3.5.

In 1934, Ruth escapes the psychiatric hospital in Tuscaloosa where she was born and raised after one of the orderlies tries to force an unwanted marriage with her. After caring for an ailing, elderly man -- who gifts her with a rare coin -- she becomes half of the Hawthorn Sisters, two women who claim they can heal people through touch and prayer. When her other half falls in love with the evangelical preacher they have partnered with, Ruth needs to reinvent herself again.

In the present day, Eve Candler, granddaughter of Dove Jarrod, a famous faith healer, manages her late grandmother's charitable foundation -- even though Dove told her the truth (or fiction) about her faith healing before she died. When back in Tuscaloosa to film a documentary about the foundation, Eve is violently assaulted by a man who tells her that he really killed Dove and wants the missing coin.

I liked the duel timeline in this book. I love when books use this format because it usually lets the reader explore the characters' lives more deeply and lets us see a lot more of the background. And, I also liked the light mystery in this book -- who hurt Eve and Dove? Who were the Hawthorn sisters? What is so important about the coin? I enjoyed how the author teased all this out.

However, I felt like a lot of the character development was more superficial, especially with Eve and her relationship with her grandmother. I wanted more. I wanted more about Ruth, too. I wanted more description, more feeling, a bigger sense of urgency in her situation. I liked these characters, but I don't think we were ever fully invited into their lives -- we made it right through the door, but got trapped in the foyer.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. It has not influenced my review.

She has done it again! Emily Carpenter has written a story full of secrets and lies that will keep you reading until the bitter end!

Eve Candler helps to run the foundation in her beloved grandmother’s name Dove Jarrod. She adores her grandmother, but she is harboring a huge secret and should that secret get out it will destroy her grandmother’s legend. While a documentary is being filmed about Dove and the foundation, Eve is assaulted. The perpetrator means business and is threatening everything Eve holds near and dear to her heart!

Told in alternating time periods we learn who Dove was, from her daring escape from a psychiatric hospital, to the formation of the Hawthorn Sisters, and how she survived on her own. Eve is our present day storyline. She thought she knew all there was to know about her grandmother, but quickly discovers that there is a whole lot more to her than what she had originally thought.

I love Eve’s curiosity. She knows what she uncovers may destroy everything, but she forges forward determined to find the truth. Dove is quite the character. She is independent, driven, self-confident, and free-spirited. In the end Eve may have more in common with her grandmother than she realizes.

For an intriguing, atmospheric historical fiction mystery, you will not want to miss out on this book!

While I didn't dislike this book, I can't really say I loved it either. So many characters and the dual timelines made it hard for me to follow the story. I also never really connected with the characters nor cared much about what happened to the coin. It just wasn't for me.

EXCERPT: DOVE

This was how she knew the end was near.

At night time, after she'd gone to bed and begun the welcome voyage toward sleep, her friends would appear. They fluttered the curtains and stirred the dust, bringing with them the smell of long ago, far away places.

When she was young, she would have thought them ghosts, but at the clear-eyed age of ninety five, she knew better. They were only memories, flickers of her past. The stories she'd kept hidden for so long that she almost didn't recognize the players when they reentered the stage.

The visits (she liked to think of them as visits) had started in the summer when she still lived at the Alabama house across the road from Pritchard Hospital. In July, she'd seen her mother, the Major, and Dell. Then in August, Ethel and Erma and Jimmy Singley. Also, old Steadfast and Arthur showed up. Come that September - when the business with the Honeysuckle Girls came to a head - Jinn, Collie and Trix arrived, laughing and fiercely beautiful. They filled the room with the smell of wine. It was her first night back in California that brought the most welcome guest - her greatest friend and staunchest ally, Charles. He sat on his side of the bed and sang to her, and she kept her eyes on his strong, safe profile until sleep descended.

She was glad to see them all. Their presence brought her comfort. When they were alive, some had not treated her well; some had even been cruel, but she didn't mind now. That was one of the many blessings of old age. This softening of memory, the melting away of grudges. Forgiveness was no longer something to strive for. Now it entered her room through an open window.

One chilly night toward the end of October, Dove was wakened by a dream she couldn't remember. She looked at the clock, but she'd left her glasses outside and couldn't see the time. She could see the shadow man who sat motionless in the slipper chair beside her dressing table. He watched her with eyes that glittered.

'You,' she said, her voice filled with wonder and the edge of a memory she would have rather not revisited.

'You shouldn't have run, Ruth,' the shadow man said. 'You brought so much sorrow in doing that. So much pain.'

'I'm sorry.'

It was all she could think to say, although she knew it certainly didn't make up for what she'd done.

He rose then, letting the faint light fall over him, and when he held up a length of faded pink ribbon, it seemed to glow in the light of the moon.

'You belonged to him,' he said. 'You always belonged to him.'

It wasn't true, but she knew it was pointless to argue. He'd spoken with the zeal of a convert, and that was a thing she was well acquainted with. As soon as she realized this, she also realized something else, something she should have known sooner, from the first moment she'd opened her eyes.

The figure in the dark wasn't a ghost, or an ephemeral memory from her past, but a real flesh and blood man. And he hadn't come as a friend. He'd come for revenge.

ABOUT REVIVING THE HAWTHORN SISTERS: Dove Jarrod was a renowned evangelist and faith healer. Only her granddaughter, Eve Candler, knows that Dove was a con artist. In the eight years since Dove’s death, Eve has maintained Dove’s charitable foundation—and her lies. But just as a documentary team wraps up a shoot about the miracle worker, Eve is assaulted by a vengeful stranger intent on exposing what could be Dove’s darkest secret: murder…

Tuscaloosa, 1934: a wily young orphan escapes the psychiatric hospital where she was born. When she joins the itinerant inspirational duo the Hawthorn Sisters, the road ahead is one of stirring new possibilities. And with an obsessive predator on her trail, one of untold dangers. For a young girl to survive, desperate choices must be made.

Now, to protect her family, Eve will join forces with the investigative filmmaker and one of Dove’s friends, risking everything to unravel the truth behind the accusations against her grandmother. But will the truth set her free or set her world on fire?

MY THOUGHTS: Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters is a multigenerational story of the family of Dove Jarrod, where secrets are discovered, lies uncovered, and a long lost treasure searched for, all set over a dual timeline switching between the present and the 1930s.

While this has some of the same characters as Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, it is not a sequel as such, and each book can be read as a stand-alone. Whereas the Honeysuckle Girls focused on Jinn and her great granddaughter Althea, the Hawthorn Sisters is centred around Dove in the 1930s and her granddaughter Eve in the present. Jinn barely rates a mention, but Althea features quite prominently.

I didn't feel the same connection to the characters that I felt with the Honeysuckle Girls, and yet I was excited at the thought of learning Dove's backstory because I was sure, from what we saw of her in the Honeysuckle Girls, it was going to be most interesting. And the sections of the book that focus on Dove are interesting, and exciting. It was Eve's story that fell flat for me. I didn't connect with her at all, and I was a little disappointed with the similarities between Althea's character in the Honeysuckle Girls, and Ember's in the Hawthorn Sisters. I don't think that the story flows as smoothly as Burying the Honeysuckle Girls. There are hints of the supernatural in this story, which I am not generally averse to, but sometimes they just didn't quite fit. Carpenter's writing remains beautiful and atmospheric, just the characters let this book down.

Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters is a good read, just not, in my opinion, as good as Burying the Honeysuckle Girls which entranced and riveted me from beginning to end.

⭐⭐⭐.6

#RevivingtheHawthornSisters #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Emily Carpenter, a former actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes soap opera assistant, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Auburn University. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, she now lives in Georgia with her family. (Amazon)

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Lake Union Publishing via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters by Emily Carpenter for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

Another great story by Emily Carpenter. I requested this book because of the write-up and I’ve enjoyed other books by this author. The cover was also beautiful..I love a great cover! I Seem to have a tendency for picking books that are a follow-up and I haven’t read the first book. Oy! But, this book is so well written that I had no clue what I might have missed. Ms. Carpenter did a great job of making sure nothing was missed. I can’t wait to read Burying the Honeysuckle Girls.

This Southern Gothic book flows seamlessly from the 1930s to present day setting forth a mystery of a faith healing Grandmother and her estranged Granddaughter who is helping to run the family foundation, her grandmother’s legacy. Poignant storyline that builds throughout. Characters are well written, so nice to see them grow throughout the book.

Thanks to Ms. Carpenter, Lake Union Publishing (one of my favorites) and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone!

Burying the Honeysuckle Girls by Emily Carpenter was one of my favorite non historical fiction books and Reviving The Hawthorn Sisters is just as good. This book was exactly what I have been looking for since the pandemic. A fun, well written, page turner. Each chapter ends making you say one more chapter and then sleep. There is no time for sleep while reading this book there is a pull that makes you keep turning the pages.

The story takes place during 1934 in Alabama. It is about preachers, evangelists and healing. I absolutely adored the characters, their quirkiness, their determination, their unselfish love for family and friends.

One of the blessings of aging “This softening of memory, the melting away of grudges.” Dove is, born in an assylum, to a mother who hung herself after giving birth. Dove escapes the assylum in her teens, entering a big, scary world with nobody to guide her. Eve is Dove’s granddaughter. After Dove dies, Eve is determined to find out why her grandmother went through life lying, cheating and hiding the truth from her family. Throughout the book Eve is in search of the Flowing Hair Dollar a rare coin that is worth millions. Is it possible that Eve’s grandmother, Dove, was killed because she stole the coin?

Reviving The Hawthorn Sisters really had it all, great characters, great writing, great mystery and a great ending. Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Emily Carpenter for this awesome, entertaining read during a time that I really needed it.

3.5 stars!
Eve is carrying on the legacy of her grandmother, Dove, by keeping her charity foundation running after her death. Dove was a renowned evangelist and faith healer throughout Alabama for years but Eve knows she’s a fraud after she told her when she couldn’t heal Eve’s disability. When Eve is threatened at one of the charity’s events, she is forced to delve deeper into Dove’s colourful past than she ever wanted to.

I liked Eve but found her family’s ignorance about Dove’s abilities to be annoying. They surely must have had some inkling that she wasn’t exactly as she seemed?I was also kind of unsure of what purpose Althea served, other than a filler. I did enjoy Carpenter’s exploration of what it means to be faithful, to family and a religion. It was slightly lengthier than what I found necessary as I really loved Dove’s storyline set in the 1930s but wasn’t crazy about Eve’s parts. The setting (especially during Dove’s time in the asylum) was very atmospheric and the gothic elements were fascinating. Overall, I liked the dual storylines and imagery of the South. I did kind of feel like it was just missing an extra “oomph” to bump it up to a four star.

A family with secrets, secrets that threaten to expose their grandmother as a fraud and derail the foundation that was started in her name. Many families have secrets, but most are not as potentially harmful as what Eve knows and what she is threatened with. As Eve works to unravel the mystery of Dove and to prove that murder was not part of Dove’s past, there are new secrets revealed, new relationships formed, and the threat of losing her life.

I loved the mystery and intrigue in the story. Following the clues, putting together the information, and trying to guess what will happen next kept me turning pages and staying up past my bedtime. I loved Eve, she stood by her family even as her whole life in threatened. As the story continued, I found that her strength, her sense of family, and her need for the truth made her a character that I was cheering for. I was cheering for her to stay safe, to find out what had really happened to Dove, and to find a happy ending for herself.

Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters is a book that I recommend picking up a copy of. I’ve been told it is a follow-up to Emily Carpenter’s Burying the Honeysuckle, but I have not read the first book and this one did not read as part of a series so I would say that the books do not have to be read in order.

Happy Pub day to Emily Carpenter! It is always good to hear when she’s coming up with a novel. I’ve been a fan for a few years now and this one wasn’t any different. I love her short chapters, with their own bits of cliffhangers. Loved the dual timeline so you get perspective from each character and what is going on! One for sure you don’t want to miss!