Book Review: Corrigans Pool by Dot Ryan

Title: Corrigans Pool
Author: Dot Ryan
Genre: Historical Fiction
Challenges:
Rating: 3/5
No. of Pages: 424
Published: April 24th 2009

Back Cover: Ella Corrigan has the weight of four generations laid solely on her shoulders. After her mother's accident, her father drifted to alcohol, leaving Ella to manage Greenpoole. She runs the plantation efficiently and treats her slaves with dignity. But marriage, expected for a belle of her standing, eludes her.
When Gentry Garland rides into Savannah from Texas, Ella's life brightens. Despite a contentiuus start, he and Ella fall in love. When Gentry exits her life as abruptly as he had entered it, Ella, brokenhearted, and with feelings of shame for having loved him, hastily marries Victor Faircloth-a man whose proposals she has long avoided.
At Faircloth's plantation, Ella witnesses depravities of the human spirit that stun her. Her own gentle family has owned slaves for generations but now she questions that institution for the first time, feeling a strange kinship with Victor's empty-eyed servants who are beginning to escape his cruelty one by one. Thrust upon her heart is the knowledge of how they disappear without a trace . . . when the mystery of Corrigan's Pool on her family's neighboring property is finally revealed.
Struggling against her husband's dictates and blackmail, worsened by bitter memories of Gentry Garland, Ella must bargain not only for her own survival but that of her family and the slaves she has come to pity. As Sherman's Union troops burn their way across Georgia and swarm onto her property and then into Savannah, Ella musters strength that she believed she no longer possessed. Can she save herself and those who depend on her? What will she do when the past she has long blamed for her wretchedness steps unexpectedly out of the darkness to face her?
Mine: I had never heard of the book or author, so was intrigued to read this book. It was a little slow to start and did drag some during the middle. I did like the fact that Ella tried to treat everyone with respect. It’s story that takes place during Civil War time and after. The story is about what love and family can really mean.

I believe this might be a good book for a book group to read, since there is a lot to discuss about the period of time and the tragedies of war and how it affect all involve (slaves, plantation owners). The romance is wonderful and strongly written.

In the end this was a wonderful book to have gotten and read. Thank you to Pump It Up