The Book of Marie    by Terry Kay Order:  USA  Can Mercer University Press, 2015 (2015) Softcover, e-Book      Reviewed by Barbara Lingens Hauntingly beautiful, this is a story of a love that began in high school and never ended, despite the fact that the lovers never saw each other after high school. Cole is a well-read football hero in a small Southern town in the time just before the civil rights marches. Marie is the outsider who moves to the town and sees all the things it isn't and foresees all the changes to come. In her first letter to Cole, Marie stipulates that they never send pictures. Their correspondence over the next decades is just as quirky as their high-school relationship was. It is when Cole goes back for his 50th reunion that he finally confronts the events that caused him to stay away from his home town those many years and to fully understand what Marie saw at that time. This book is extremely well written. Cole's personality and foibles come through to us even in the first-person narrative, which is wicked hard to do. We get a very good feel for what it must have been like in those times. I did wish, though, that the unsolved mystery could have been fleshed out more, especially since that is what begins the book. This is a story written by a master at story-telling. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Historical books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews