Ethel L. Ingalls
Reader Responses
Responses to Only a Week Away
To say I was impressed with Only A Week Away sounds weak. I was actually blown away! I cried, laughed, prayed for and stressed-out with all your characters. You have shown what our American citizens' ancestors were made of, what they went through, how their lives were filled with pain and sorrow, accompanied with small doses of happiness and satisfaction tossed into the melee. I believe that if you had not written this as a genealogy book but had made it an historical fiction, you may have gotten the attention of an agent and a mainstream publisher, possibly would have had a best seller. I can see it being written as perhaps a trilogy, can even see a movie and a sequel out of it. Ethel, well done!!!
-Sally Roseveare, Some how you have captured what daily life is like without transferring the menial labor and hardship to the reader (the reader doesn't get bored with the content). If you were ever inclined to write fiction again, I recommend the intimate tales of couples. You really do an excellent job of story telling that flows through daily lives, it's a genre of writing I don't often come across.
-Jonathan I.....so many thank yous to extend -- for the (as usual) wonderful Digest as well as the masterfully prepared "Only a Week Away." Your approach to family history makes this book far more readable than most efforts I've seen and definitely engenders a sense of the times in which the family lived.
-Bonnie D. I started reading Wednesday about 3 pm and couldn't quit until 1 am Thursday morning! Wow! First I noticed the good color of the paper and the sharpness of print making it easy reading. Then I enjoyed the terms of speech (olden days)....you wrote "simply" but telling your message in ways that led the readers mind to assume what all and more was meant. I love it that way!
-Betty E. Thank you, thank you for the splendid book and the hard work it must have required. Congratulations and every good wish.
-Bruce D. You paint beautiful pictures with your words.....I loved the walk through the woods with James, Susannah and John when they had a supervised picnic at the cabin.
-Jeanne L. I started reading it and can hardly put it down!!...savoring every chapter!! ...There is a ton of research and accuracy in it. When I read it I can imagine the scenes and it is like I am there watching.
-Sally S. I can't imagine the research you must have done. It includes so much. I read it fast this first time and hope to do a second slower read so that I can try to remember more of the history. Thanks so much!
-Joyce O. I enjoyed your book so much! ....I have the two little handmade rockers that James and Susannah used in their first home on Pillar Point...Grandma Nason had them all her life and then they came to me. It was fun to read about the first cabin on Pillar Point, and imagine these chairs being there!
-Jean G. I am enjoying your book. It is very well written and fascinating to read.
-Alice S.