A Thousand Voices

Reading A THOUSAND VOICES by Lisa Wingate was a treat. This is the final book in the Tending Roses series and continues the story of one of the main characters from THE LANGUAGE OF SYCAMORES, Dell Jordan, who was adopted at the age of thirteen after being abandoned by her biological mother. She never knew who her father was, and now at age twenty, she needs some answers. Her adoptive family is loving and close and her memories of the woman she called Grandma Rose will always remain with her. But as she watches her family during a baby shower, and realizes that no one will say HER future babies resembles anyone in this family, she feels that she will never truly belong.

Dell resolves to find her biological family, to search for that father she never knew. She has one clue found on her birth certificate that he was a Native American from Oklahoma. With that information, she travels to the Kiamichi Mountains without telling her adoptive parents, and soon her adventures begin.

After much driving and stopping to ask for directions and a motel room, Dell arrives at a campground with an empty spot where she could park in, just for the night. She has hardly any food with her, not having planned on camping out. As she sits awkwardly alone at a park bench, eating an old candy bar for dinner, she can hear the music being played a few campsites over. Coming from one of the tents, she spies two young Native American children and soon after that, a man’s voice breaks into her reverie. He is Jace, the children’s father, and the two form a friendship after he invites Dell to his family’s party.

Dell slowly gets the information that will lead her to the answers she's been looking for regarding the mystery of her father. In the mean time, she and Jace bond as he helps in her search. And, she feels that for once in her life she can truly say that these are HER people. Somewhere in this group of people are the clues that will lead her to her father, the man that may possibly give her the family she always craved.

This reviewer loved A THOUSAND VOICES just as much as THE LANGUAGE OF SYCAMORES. These are the last two books in the Tending Roses series, and the reader will want to read the entire series after finishing reading this one. Dell Jordan is a standout character who comes across as a naive child, although she is already twenty years old in this book. It isn’t apparent whether this was intentional by the author, but it showed how fragile Dell was because she is searching for her father, and that she was so hopeful in finding him that the thought of not succeeding never enters her mind. As far as she's concerned, he's out there waiting for her.

Secondary characters that play an important role are Jace, the man she meets during her travels, a man she envisions having a future with. His children Autumn and Willie play a major role in leading Dell to Jace, and last but not least, Shasta, Jace’s sister, plays a nurturing role in Dell’s newly found family, someone who feels like a sister to Dell. Of course Dell’s adoptive parents Karen and James also play an important part, through flashbacks and phone calls as Dell goes in search of her father.

Dell’s need to create a new family for herself, people that LOOKED like her, was touching, but what she finds out about herself during this trip is most important. It's not who we are related to that is family, but who was there for us and took care of us when we needed someone the most. Family is not all about blood ties. Dell’s search for her father may lead her to what she is looking for, even though it may not be exactly what she had hoped for.

This reviewer highly recommends A THOUSAND VOICES, the last of the four novels in Lisa Wingate’s popular series of books, and hopes that readers who have yet to read the previous three books will not hesitate to check them out as well.

November 2007