The Last Green Valley: A Novel

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The Last Green Valley is based on a true story, Mark Sullivan has written an epic novel, it's a testimony to the love Adeline and Emil had for each other and their children.

Last Green Valley: Northeastern Connecticut - New England Last Green Valley: Northeastern Connecticut - New England

The dialogue is both corny/clichéd and isn’t used effectively and therefore seems misplaced at times and choppy at others. A few days later, Mark put Bill Martel’s address into the navigator and realized the two lived less than two miles apart. When I asked him if it was painful for either him, as the investigator, or for Martel to recount this story, Sullivan says, “I think that Bill (Martel) recognized that it was a tough story, but I think he also knew just how cathartic it was. Despite the emotional difficulty in reading this I would really recommend it and I am now determined to read more of Sullivan’s work. At the end of their first discussion, Mark sensed that the story of the Martels’ could be both healing and potentially transformational for readers.

Perhaps Sullivan has not strayed so far from the stories he set the stage for as he would have thought. All it took to have a good life was a cheerful, grateful mood, a clearly envisioned heartfelt dream, and the willingness to chase it with an unwavering belief in its eventual realization.

The Last Green Valley - Sharon Virts | Author The Last Green Valley - Sharon Virts | Author

To have to flee their homes, cope with years of food shortages and little heating, and a lack of medical care repeatedly shows how resilient they had to be. I think the issue I had with this had to do with the first half of the book being a tight story that for the most part, took place over a short period of time. Do they follow the Nazi's who promise to protect them in their retreat from Ukraine or do they stay and risk being killed or sent to Siberia? Beskaitant, pradėjo eiti baisios žinios apie rusų žiaurumus Ukrainoje, kurie visiškai paraleliai sekė knygos veiksmą. Emil released the wagon’s simple lever brake and clucked up the horses, which leaned hard into the load, the wagon rolling slowly at first, and then gathering enough speed to slip into a gap between other wagons and groups of refugees on foot who stood to the side, all their belongings in burlap sacks, staring in envy as the Martels passed.One of my favorite characters was Corporal Gheorghe and I was thrilled to discover in the Author’s Notes that he was based on a real person. During the trek, Emil meets Nikolas, a German refugee who participated in Nazi-sanctioned murders in Ukraine. It is not a religious book, so I don’t want to say that it is, but there were a few too many mentions of God here for me in a book like this. One day, after doing a presentation in his hometown of Bozeman, MT, a retired dentist approached Mark and asked him if he knew the Martel family in town.

The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan – Karen K is reading The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan – Karen K is reading

I understand why he did this; there’s a hell of a lot to tell here and he didn’t want a book that was thousands of pages long. He thought life would be better for them under the Germans rather than the Russians, but was it true? They are essentially fleeing both the Soviets and the Nazis - this was their experience with The Long Trek, and I knew shamefully little of it before reading this book. Emil insists to Adeline that they must travel west and surrender to the Allies, but Adeline is hesitant to uproot their family again. This area was designated because it is one of the last remaining stretches of green in the Boston to Washington, D.Until the day many months later, when they were finally on the cusp of escape and Emil was captured by Polish soldiers. The Last Green Valley is based on a real family of ethnic Germans who have lived and farmed in Ukraine for their entire lives. There is a certain gravitas that pulls the reader deep between the covers of the book, deeper still into the very fabric of the story. Not long after meeting Martel, Sullivan found himself on a plane, with Martel, as they flew to Bucharest, Romania, in a concerted effort to pick up the trail of his family’s extraordinary journey to their own paradise and green valley. Green” is more than just a word in this oasis: More than 70 percent of the Last Green Valley remains field, farmland, and forest.