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Although EVERGREEN FALLS opens with a body, don't mistake this for a murder mystery. Instead, it's a romance, but one filled with dark secrets and family dynamics that stretch across the decades to affect present-day characters as much as those who lived through the original events.
Set in Australia and alternating between 1926 and 2014, the story tells of sheltered Lauren Beck who, living on her own for the first time, discovers a cache of steamy love letters and begins to investigate their origin. Little by little, she uncovers bits and pieces of information about the participants in the romance, but Kimberly Freeman doesn't leave the reader in the same state of unknowing that Lauren's in. Instead, Freeman takes us back to 1926 and lets us watch events unfold at the posh Evergreen Spa Hotel where rich, opium-addicted Sam falls in love with the waitress Violet, and all involved suffer the consequences.
Much of this story is fairly predictable. Of course, Violet gets pregnant. Of course a wealthy, opium-addicted man isn't going to marry a poor waitress, pregnant or not. Of course the events of 1926 affect Lauren in 2014, and the connection is fairly easy to guess (although I won't reveal it here). In spite of all the predictability, though, EVERGREEN FALLS is still a worthwhile read. Imagining events at a spa hotel in 1926 is fun, the characters, while somewhat stereotypical, do have some unexpected depths, and in the 2014 sections, Lauren does some growing up, which gives the novel an extra layer of interest. Overall, the 1926 sections are more fully realized than those in the present, and the characters in the past are more deeply drawn. Lauren's own growth and revelations are a bit too glibly portrayed and easily obtained, but this isn't really Lauren's story, so that's easily overlooked. Rather than being about Lauren and her entry into adulthood, EVERGREEN FALLS, based to some extent on Freeman's grandmother's memoirs, is primarily about those who love Sam and Violet and what families will do to and for each other (Freeman works that theme into Lauren's tale, as well, neatly tying the two eras together in multiple ways). Through that story, it illustrates Freeman's belief that not only does the past inform the present, but the present can inform our interpretations of the past, and all of that can inform our future. The way that theme is explored is a nice way to spend a few hours.
§ Meredith Frazier, a writer with a background in English literature, lives in Dallas, Texas
Reviewed by Meredith Frazier, August 2015
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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