Review of Making It All Right by Denise Breeden-Ost

This book is not a work of fiction, except in the technical sense.  This book is not a book you read, except in the technical sense.  

This book is a book you visit, a book with which you sit a spell, to the sound of old screen doors and children and puppies, the scent of apple pies and wood smoke, the sounds of joy and grief, anger and sorrow, hope and forgiveness. 

The characters may not exist in a physical sense but never doubt that they are as real as all the stories inside you, whether you ever told them or not. They will stick with you and keep you company long after the last page has been turned.  They will follow you into the kitchen with a dishtowel over their shoulder and remind you of your own deep humanness, your own faults and foibles, your own strength and your own resilience. 

Denise Breeden-Ost has managed to bring life to an era and a geography that is authentic and well grounded in historic and human truths. With dialogue both simply and powerfully wrought, we are allowed to see into the minds of the characters that people this place and time and, particularly, into the minds of the three main characters with whom we take this journey. 

Her use of the English language is immaculate.  She says neither too much nor too little, though you will wish the story were longer, once it is told. 

This is a novel that penetrates the surface of human trials and tribulations and reveals, without judgment, what it is to navigate them .  We are shown extraordinary circumstances woven inexorably with the beauty and power of the ordinary. 

We are reminded of how multifaceted each human being is and of how deeply we are shaped by our stories, both told and untold. We are reminded that the power of love is about understanding and that understanding is the true path to forgiveness. 

Breeden-Ost has accomplished with her first novel something many authors never manage.  She has written a book that speaks directly to common human experience, beyond race, culture or class.  She has managed to introduce us to ourselves.  The worth of that gift cannot be overstated. 

—Carmen Abner, Eastern Kentucky columnist, author of “The Briar Philosopher”