"The bud was beautifully formed, promising a full red blossom, but Cleo spied the tiny bore hole. The bloom would be marred with ravaged petals from the worm nestled in it's center".

The Color of the Rose by Gretchen Craig

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

This book contains three stories. My favorite by far is Summer Heat.

Two of them, Afternoon Tea and The color of the rose are focused on the relationship between Slaves and master.

Summer Heat is set in the great depression and the story is about a young woman, living with her mom who has nobody to talk to and has despaired of ever finding anyone to love. She is lonely but hard working and resigned to her fate. Until a young man appears at the door looking for work.

All three of these stories carry with them the themes of sadness, alienation and fitting in., . The writing is beautifully descriptive and as vivid as a rose in bloom. This stories are my first introduction to the works of Gretchen Craig but I can already tell she is going to be an author I absolutely love.

The stories are short but contain as much depth and wild beauty as any full length book. I was entranced. Recommended strongly for fans of Historical Fiction. You will love this delightful book. ( )

There are three stories in this collection, the first two of which are linked. They are all set in the Deep South of America.
In Afternoon Tea Josie, aged 6, has a doll as a present from her wealthy father. She is playing with Cleo, also aged 6, her slave half-sister dressed in a sacking dress. When a black servant, Bibi, comes in to serve tea, the mother deliberately makes her spill the tea. She shouts at her and then beats her. He, however, sweeps up the two young girls and takes them to his room where he sits them on his knees. It is clear that he has been having an affair with Bibi and that his wife is aware of it.
We return to the same family fifteen years later in The Color of the Rose. Cleo is now a house slave who has annoyed her mistress. As punishment she is made to hoe over the rose garden. She continues to work the rose garden all summer long after she has completed her housework because she found that she enjoyed the work. It was certainly preferable to emptying spittoons and ‘night jars’. She is, nevertheless, worried that she will be sunburned as black as the field hands because of her exposure. She loves the colour of the roses which are mainly red, but her favourites are yellow.
Josie’s mother is determined to get her married off. One morning Cleo is told to get flowers for a corsage and two buds to put in her hair. Because a gentleman is calling for her later in the day.
Cleo does this and takes a yellow bud for herself. In her room in the evening she put it in her hair and studied herself in the mirror. She knew there would be no gentleman caller for her. She crushed the rose and blew out the light.
Summer heat on the other hand is set on a small farm in the great depression of the 1930s. A mother and daughter, Etta, 24, attempt to manage the farm following the death of the husband out in the fields. Etta had taken charge of the kitchen and cooking when she was 15. Her mother effectively did nothing about the house or on the farm. All she liked was listening to President Roosevelt and hymns on the radio. She hated Etta listening to anything else, especially modern music.
Then, one day, a man passes by asking for work in return for a roof and food. Etta gives him the work her father used to do, a bed in the barn and meals on the kitchen step. In time, she made a pot of coffee for them to share after supper. He told her about the places he’d been and things he’d done. As is only to be expected, mthey fall in love and made love in the barn in the dead of the night.
Etta’s brother Earl appears on the farm at heir mother’s request. He takes the man away with him to the nearby town where he lives. Etta is heartbroken.
Several weeks later he reappears. When Etta sees him she runs down the road. He carried a present for them of a 40 lb block of ice. Her brother had got to know him and had found him work.
After supper, he and Etta went indoors and listened to the radio and danced quietly.

These are three very different stories. The third is about family closeness and distrust of outsiders, while the first two are about slavery and the bad treatment of slaves. All three are eminently readable. ( )