In my opinion, this book needs to be actively published again! I used this book as a guide to grow my first vegetable garden in Richmond, VT. It thoroughly explained EACH step in the process with text and illustrations/photos. My neighbor, whom I hadn't met yet, left a letter in my mailbox around August of that year. It contained a photo of my garden and a note saying that mine was the most beautiful vegetable garden she'd ever seen and thought I would appreciate the picture of it! I have checked this book out of the library each spring since and this year it was listed as "lost!" That's why I'm here on-line: buying an "acceptable" condition copy used rather than do without! BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU CAN!

I just want to emphasize the earlier reviews: This is a great, enormously helpful guide to gardening just about anywhere (I live in southern CA and I enjoyed the section on cold weather gardening even if I never use it). The author isn't clearly part of a gardening school of thought (square foot, raised beds, biodynamic), he is just vastly knowledgable about gardening and will meet you wherever you are - a sign of a great teacher. He wrote the best section on homemade garden structures - A frames, cold frames and the like - I have seen. Not a useless or wasted page. Please bring it back!

I have borrowed this gem from the library every spring for 3 seasons, and now I am desperate to get my own. There is no better gardening book dedicated to vegetables, and the month by month schedule saves me hours of planning. No other gardening book I've found has this month by month format, and it is unbeatable! I love this book - a reprint would sell a lot of copies in Indiana, because every gardening friend and relative I have would receive a copy as a gift from me.

I just returned from the Pekin area. I finished reading "Lynch Law" this past winter. I enjoyed detail the writer used in describing the area. I felt like I knew the area when I drove arrived in the Pekin area. I found the book to be acruate in its lay out of the towns and area. I plan to reread the book now that I have been in the area. I enjoyed the mixture of history and mystery.

One of the most realistic writings of midwestern history that I've ever read. The author made you feel like you were right there during the trial and lynching. What an exciting book! We are expecting great things from this author!

I enjoyed this book very much. It is the story of Jim and Louella Johnson, an over-the-hill black couple who are having trouble in the love department. Louella conjures up her dead female relatives to ask their advice...the dead women appear to her in a dream and offer her some very savy sex tips on how to add a spark to Louella and Jim's love life. She follows their directions, and Boy-Howdy, things do start to perk up around the Johnson household.

The story, to this point is very sweet, heart tugging and completely believable... but things get a little weird when both Jim and Louella realize that because of all their lovemaking, they now have the "gift" of reading people's minds. Between the two of them, they are privy to the secrets in the "downstairs" of the souls of everyone in town. To make things stranger still, Jim's long lost brother shows up, to explain how the "gift" is a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation, and that Louella has received the gift because of her loving relationship with Jim.

Armed with the "gift" the couple decides that they should help people find love. The walking wounded they try to teach to "walk in love" include a farmer with a hygiene problem who's wife doesn't want him any more, a dysfunctional librarian who distrusts people, a prostitute dying of cancer, and a crossing guard who molests children. All this mind-reading and reaching-out makes the Johnsons suspect among their neighbors and not everyone is happy with their do-gooding. Just when Louella begins to think that maybe she isn't cut out for it, a knock on the door and a visit from the local bookstore owners reveals that she and Jim are just one link in a chain of black folk who, since first being brought to American, have had the "gift" and used it to try to help black people stay true to the way of love, in a world of hate towards them.

While the book has a homey feel, right from the beginning it is evident that while Louella and Jim have "countrified" ways, they are intelligent people with keen insight. This was evident even before they recieved the "gift." One of the reasons I kept turning the pages was the humor and warmth that I got from the voice of Louella Johnson. She is sassy and smart and I could listen to her all day.

The truth of the story seems to be simple enough - it all comes down to love. However, nothing in the story is as simple as it first appears, including Louella, Although sincere, the contradictions take away from the simple truths of the story. When nothing else is as it seems, it is difficult to take the offered resolution at face value as well.

This book is definitely worth a trip to the library. "Jim and Louella's Homemade Heart-fix Remedy" is fun, intelligent and has lots of feeling. If it had been more about a couple who used years of love and the wisdom of experience to help others find love, and less about magical "gifts," I would have liked it even more.

You never know what to expect from writer Bertice Berry. Jim and Louella's Homeade Heart-Fix Remedy is evidence that Ms. Berry is not a "cookie-cutter" writer.

This is a special book in which the characters come to life in their love and life situations. I enjoyed the connection between Louella and the spirit of her mother, aunt and grandmother! There is definitely a lesson in "hearing" the wisdom words of those before us. I would recommend this title to not only those readers over 50, but those under 50 as well. Jim and Louella know what to do and how to do what is needed! Well done, Ms. Berry! -LC

Jim and Louella, a couple of fun-loving fifty-somethings, were in a rut. Their lovemaking wasn't what it used to be, and they were scared. After enlisting the help of her dead mother, grandmother and aunt via her dreams, Louella rekindled their romance and ignited something else far more powerful. Jim and Louella were able to hear people's thoughts, and used this gift to promote love and end internal turmoils. It seemed that the world could feel the love emanating from Jim and Louella, and many of their neighbors in their small Georgia town came to them for help with their own affairs.

Berry has created a wonderful cast of characters in this novel. I kept hoping this book would never end. The writing is conversational in tone and powerful in content, as Louella proves that what the world DOES need now is love, sweet love.

~ Reviewed by CandaceK