Heirlooms by Sandra Byrd

 

Heirlooms by Sandra Byrd is a split time story with both the modern-day story and the story from the late 1950s showing the value of friendship.

Navy Widow Helen Devries received a call from Choi Eunhee, also a widow, who needed help after her husband passed away. Eunhee is a Korean woman who married an American. Together, they learn and grow through both life's challenges and everyday adventures. 

Cassidy Quinn's mother passed away when she was a young girl. After she passed, Cassidy spent the summers with her grandmother, Helen, at her farmhouse and finds her passion for flowers and gardening. When Helen passes away, Cassidy inherits her home and garden--along with a task Helen asks her to do with Grace Kim, Eunhee's granddaughter and her friend. Together, the girls discover some of their grandmothers' secrets. Both women also have love interests and challenges in their own modern lives that they can help each other through.

Heirlooms is a character-driven novel. I grew to like all of the main characters in this novel. I especially liked how the women encouraged and worked with people with Down's syndrome and Autism. I have an autistic son, while the challenges may not be exactly the same, I understand some of them. I also liked how Byrd wove in a love of food, food family history, and a love of recipes. There are two recipes included in this book at the back too. I thought the women in both generations faced some of the challenges that many of us face with communication struggles and relationship challenges of various sorts. That all seemed quite realistic in this book. There isn't a lot of romance in this book but there is some. Mainly the book is focused on friendships and family history. As can often happen with character-driven novels, I did think that the plot moved a bit slowly for me at times but otherwise Heirlooms was a pleasurable read as a whole. 

Heirlooms could be a fun book to read with a book club. Along with the main story, with the focus on recipes, it would be fun to have a potluck meal at the end of the book. There are also book club questions included at the end of the book.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through JustRead Tours. All opinions within this review are my own.