House
of Seven is the sixth Covington Chronicle. It is not necessary to
read the five preceding books—Secret
Promise, The Courtship of Miss Loretta Larson, The Dream Bucket, Manuela
Blayne, and Travelers in Painted
Wagons on Cohay Creek—before reading House
of Seven.
Only one of the seven major characters. Cecil Canterbury,
has appeared in the other novels. Although he has been a minor character in the
other books, the time has come for him to fall in love. One man, Jacob
MacGregor, the local store owner, shows up in all the Chronicles, but he is
most often in the background. Other townspeople drift in and out of the books
of the series but cause no difficulty in understanding the current book.
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| FINAL COVER |
In each novel, comic relief brightens dark moments. Taking a
different tone, House of Seven shows
everyday life from a humorous perspective. Even though it is full of romance
laced with mystery and adventure, it is primarily written to give the readers
fun.
Even in a humorous novel, it is impossible to overlook the
flaws in society of any given time. One of the most shameful acts committed by
United States citizens—lynching—cannot be ignored. More often than we would
like to admit, this brutal crime against humanity, veiled as vigilante law
enforcement, has occurred throughout the nation, but mostly in the South. Men
and women of various racial groups (most often African American men) hung from
trees, sometimes with bonfires beneath them and sometimes with hundreds of
gunshots fired around them.
Other aspects of everyday life find their places in the
pages of House of Seven. Almost
everyone faces the challenge of growing old. How does a family choose to deal
with a loved one, especially one who has spent a lifetime saying unkind words?
Compassion and forgiveness provide ways for the individual characters to grow
with the passage of time.
Children didn’t have easy lives in the early twentieth century.
There was a practice of paying postage for a child to be mailed unaccompanied
with no one except the postman. Kidnapping and forced pickpocketing occurred
when economic conditions challenged wicked men and women to make money in
unsavory ways.
In House of Seven,
an extended family focuses on laughter and the sweet side of life.
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