Review: The Tilted World

The Tilted World

by Tom Franklin & Beth Ann Fennelly

Publisher: William Morrow

Pages: 320

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  The year is 1927. As rains swell the Mississippi, the mighty river threatens to burst its banks and engulf all in its path, including federal revenue agent Ted Ingersoll and his partner, Ham Johnson. Arriving in the tiny hamlet of Hobnob, Mississippi, to investigate the disappearance of two fellow agents on the trail of a local bootlegger, they unexpectedly find an abandoned baby boy at a crime scene.

An orphan raised by nuns, Ingersoll is determined to find the infant a home, a search that leads him to Dixie Clay Holliver. A lonely woman married too young to a charming and sometimes violent philanderer, Dixie Clay has lost her only child to illness and is powerless to resist this second chance at motherhood. From the moment they meet, Ingersoll and Dixie Clay are drawn to each other. He has no idea that she's the best bootlegger in the county and may be connected to the missing agents. And while he seems kind and gentle, Dixie Clay knows he is the enemy and must not be trusted.

Then a deadly new peril arises, endangering them all. A saboteur, hired by rich New Orleans bankers eager to protect their city, is planning to dynamite the levee and flood Hobnob, where the river bends precariously. Now, with time running out, Ingersoll, Ham, and Dixie Clay must make desperate choices, choices that will radically transform their lives-if they survive.

Kritters Thoughts:  If you have followed this blog for some time then you know I like historical fiction.  The reason I like it is because I feel like I am learning, but without the horrible symbolism talks or pop quizzes!  I was excited to read that this book was based on a historical event that doesn't get much buzz - a flood in Mississippi in 1927.

Dixie Clay married a man that she thought sold fur and would be the husband and father that she always dreamed of; instead he became a bootlegger and so did she.  It is Prohibition time and the whiskey industry is very underground.  At the same time in this small town in Mississippi they have seen gobs of rain and their levees are straining under the pressure.  Both Dixie Clay and a revenuer tell the story - it was nice to get both sides of the business and the story from one who has been in the town for a while and from a visitor.  

A slow moving book that I would only recommend to readers who are fans of the author or fans of the genre.  There were quite a few times where I just wanted the book to start running full steam ahead and it just puttered in my opinion.


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.