Into The Free

A long black train scrapes across Mr. Sutton's fields. His horses don't bother lifting their heads. They aren't afraid of the metal wheels, the smoking engine. The trains come every day, in straight lines like the hems Mama stitches across rich people's pants. Ironing and sewing, washing and mending. That's what Mama does for cash. As for me, I sit in Mr. Sutton's trees, live in one of Mr. Sutton's cabins, sell Mr. Sutton's pecans, and dream about riding Mr. Sutton's horses, all in the shadow of Mr. Sutton's big house.

I can only guess where the boxcars are going and where they've been. I pretend they carry "limber lions, testy tigers, and miniature horse wearing tall turquoise hats.

"Where do you think it's going?" I ask Sloth.

"Into the free," he says.

I watch the train until it disappears completely. I don't know what Sloth thinks free looks like, but I imagine it's a place where nine-year-old girls like me aren't afraid of their fathers. Where mothers don't get the blues. Where Mr. Sutton doesn't own the whole wide world.

I climb higher in the sweet gum and hope the engineer will turn the train around and come back to get me. Take me away, to the place Sloth calls the free.

In the novel Into the Free by Julie Cantrell, the reader is taken into the depression era-Mississippi in 1936 where Millie Reynolds longs to escape the madness that marks her world. With an abusive father and a 'nothing mama,' she struggles to find a place where she really belongs.

For answers, Millie turns to the gypsies who caravan through the town each spring. The travelers lead Millie to a key that unlocks generations of family secrets. When tragedy strikes, the mysterious contents of the box give Millie the tools she needs to break her family's long-standing cycle of madness and abuse.

I received Into the Free compliments of Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for my honest review. I think Julie Cantrell does an exceptional job at keeping the reader engaged in difficult story of child abuse and shows how Millie has to learn to trust God again when she thinks He has abandoned her. I think this relates to many readers who mistake God's silence as abandonment instead of simply trusting God's timing in all things will bring about a greater good in the end, and how much forgiveness is needed more for the victim than for those that inflict the pain. It is a freedom that needs to be released so the healing can happen, otherwise bitterness and resentment only grow in our hearts. This one rates a 5 out of 5 stars.

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Into the Free by Julie Cantrell