June of the Cornhusker Ball-B.K. Mitchell

June of the Cornhusker Ball
B.K. Mitchell
Xlibris, Jun 2009, $19.99
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/
ISBN: 9781441540362

Her mom passed away five years ago, but though the loss was hard, June Whitley Horroa had no major problem moving on because she had Aunt V who in many ways has been a surrogate mom to her for years. In 2005, June has come home to Richmond, Virginia where her family is part of the elite upper class living on Monument Ave.

She wonders about Aunt Vivian’s late husband Uncle Bill who died years ago when he was young. When Vivian becomes ill, she insists on telling June the truth about her heritage starting in 1942when her beloved Bill begged her to take him back after he left Sally; she pleaded with him to fix her indiscretion as the Negro Howard who has a family and she had an affair leaving her pregnant. Stunned and ignoring her problems with Meniere’s, June begins digging into her past finding a concealed trapped door that stuns her as her family was involved in international intrigue with Nazis and local southern intrigue with African-Americans. The more she digs, the more she learns that her white bread upper crust family has a lot of fascinating passionate skeletons; some of whom still live and love especially when musing about the Corn Huskers Ball.

The cast throughout especially June, Vivian and the rest of the family past and present are a strong fully developed crowd who being to life Richmond circa 1942, 2005 and several pivotal dates in between. Fans will relish this fine family drama as amateur sleuth June begins her investigation into her twentieth century roots especially looking closely at the relationship between Howard and Vivian. Summed up nicely by Freud, that sometimes a “cigar is just a cigar”, but sometimes it is much more if one is willing to risk what he or she thought they knew about their extended family.

Harriet Klausner