Written in the first person of Worie Dressar, an uneducated seventeen-year-old woman raised in the Appalachian mountains, What Momma Left Behind is the heartbreaking, yet heartwarming tale of orphans during a "plague" of fever. When her "momma" dies unexpectedly, Worie is left caring for other children who have lost their parents as well. Amongst the tragedies and challenges she faces, Worie needs to learn to trust in Someone other than herself. Will she find the faith to take her through the trials ahead? Can she trust God and the friends He has placed in her life?

What Momma Left Behind was well-written, suspenseful, and, although it wasn't the typical Christian romance I usually read, I had a hard time putting it down.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book through the publisher and NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. My positive review is not required.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book for review.

I absolutely loved this book. It had all the feels. It gave the insight how things were done back when. It’s a book about family, love, loss, struggles, healing and determination. I hated putting the book down and then I couldn’t wait to pick it back up to get back to the lives in this book.

I highly recommend this book.

Being an Appalachian girl, I really connected with this book. It is based upon true events that happened back in the late 1800s, and the characters speak in dialect. (This may bother some people, but it felt like home.) When Worie's mom commits suicide, she finds herself struggling with all of the crazy events going on around her. (With the current pandemic, it made this book even more interesting.) Then the red beads and children begin to show up, and she's left with a mystery to solve. Appalachian women are small but strong, and one of the central themes of this book is Worie learning to trust God rather than just pulling up her bootstraps and relying upon herself... For fans of historical southern fiction, this is a must-read!

What Momma Left Behind by Cindy K. Sproles is both tender and tough - much like 19-year old spinster, Worie Dressar, whose momma taught her that "mountain women shovel their feelins over the shoulder and go on".

Set in the Appalachian Mountains in 1898, Worie finds herself an orphan during an outbreak of "the fever", that's killing mountain folks left and right. Her two brothers are no help - one is a drunk and the other a hateful swindler - and before she knows how it happened, she finds herself homeless and responsible for a handful of starving, broken-hearted orphan children. The storyline is intense and intimate and, a times, unflinching. It is also powerful and redemptive as Worie learns to trust herself, others and God.

What Momma Left Behind is written in dialect, something I'm not generally a fan of, but in this case, the language became almost another character, It was a brilliant move by an incredibly skilled and sensitive author, and one that really made the book better.

I loved this book. The storyline was tight and complex and thick with emotion and drama. The characters were whole people, flawed and tested and filled with big feelings. And the writing was so good as to be invisible. This was pure storytelling, plain and simple and wonderful.

This review was based on an advance copy read.

I had no idea what to expect when I picked up Cindy Sproles’ book, What Momma Left Behind. What I found was not a romance, but a fight to survive in the, to uncover a decade’s old secret, and a desperation to save a mother’s legacy.

This book was a quick read for me. Sproles was able to captivate my attention by a plot thick with mys-tery, one that tugged my heart strings. I found myself yearning for the survival of your heroine and all those she vowed to protect.

What Momma Left Behind is certain to get under your skin. An Appalachian adventure, complete with a strong heroine who will stop at nothing to protect those she loves, this is not one to be missed!


I received this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Hard Times in Sourwood

It's hard times in the remote area of the Appalachian mountains in 1898 when an influenza fever outbreak takes over Worie's small Tennessee community of Sourwood. So many people are dying an so many are left without parents. Worie knew that her mother was helping one family...she didn't know the rest. Worie at least has her mother after her father passes away...until she doesn't. When she finds her mother dead from suicide she is devastated , angry at her mother, hurt and alone. She is now an orphan at 19.

Then the unthinkable happens. Orphans start appearing for Worie's help. Her mother was feeding them and now they have no one since her mother is gone. What is a 19 year old to do with small children that have no parents? What can she do? She takes them in.

The story moves on, Worie has to contend with a brother, Calvin, that lies and cheats and just wants her mother's hidden fruit jar where he thinks she keeps something worth money and he aims to get it from Worie. She also has another brother, Justice, that is an alcoholic. Luckily she has a friend in the church Pastor Jess, her friend Tigger, and her friends Ely and Bess.

While Worie struggles to care for the orphans she learns valuable lessons in life. Trusting in God, trusting in each other, knowing her own heart and how to heal her hurts and control her anger over what she cannot change. She learns to feel compassion for others and to forgive and to be forgiven.

This is truly a sad story, but it is heartwarming in its love and compassion that the mountain people show for each other. It is full of love and warmth and god's teachings. The characters are realistic and the book is well written. I will never forget this wonderful story. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone.

Thanks so much to Cindy K. Sproles, Revell publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy for an honest review.

First book I have read by the author, Cindy Sproles and I was somewhat pleasantly surprised. This book is set in the Appalachian Mountains in 1877. Worie Dressar is a 17 year old girl who has been living with her mother. During this period, typhoid fever and the influenza have been taking a tole on families leaving many parents dead and small children left as orphans. Worie unexpectedly finds her mother has died and through all of this learns things about her mother she never knew. She finds out that her mother has been secretly feeding orphans left behind from all the parents dying. Throughout all of this, Worie also has to deal with two brothers who brothers who try to defeat her at every turn.

Great story and very interesting...full of information with a great storyline!

I would like to thank the publisher, Revell, and Net Galley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

Cindy K. Sproles is a new author to me, and the title, premise of the story and the book cover instantly drew me in. I knew I had to read it.

At first, I was a little thrown off by what I thought were grammatical errors. Then I realized the author was writing in the dialect of the characters. Once I got used to that, I was able to enjoy the story. And what a remarkable story it is!

Worie Dressar is seventeen years old and finds her mother dead of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. As Worie deals with the betrayal and anger she feels over her mother's suicide, children start showing up at her door. She begins to realize her mother had been feeding the orphans in the area whose parents had died of the "fever." Worie now has to fend for herself, provide for the children and be prepared to defend herself against her dangerous brother Calvin. He wants something else Momma left behind and will stop at nothing to get it.

I am torn on how I feel about this book. I loved the faith element and seeing Worie discover God while working through her anger issues and resentment over her mother's death. I loved the mystery surrounding Calvin. I loved the ending. I loved how Worie fiercely loved and protected the children that were dropped in her lap as if they were her own. That kind of love is rare. But some inconsistencies drove me crazy. For example, how did Calvin know his mother was shot? Worie silently asks herself that question, but it is never addressed again. Why bring it up at all? If Calvin is central to the plot, why not make that part of it? How Momma died and why really threw me for a loop and seemed the wrong way to go. But maybe that's just me.

As for Pastor Jess - why did he talk like Worie? It is clear that Worie was uneducated, and that explains her language, but why would an educated man speak like that too? Again, it might just be me, but that bothered me right to the end of the book.

I loved Ely and Bess and their devotion to Worie and especially to God. Despite all the troubles they had been through, their steadfast faith in God was admirable.

While it sounds like I didn't like this book, I really did! And I do recommend it, but like Worie, I still have questions that beg to be answered. And maybe that is the point. God didn't give Worie all the answers she needed, but He gave her enough to place her trust in Him. In the end, what Momma left behind, was a lesson in faith for Worie. To trust in God even when things seem impossible. Something we all can take to heart during these trying times.

I received this book courtesy of Baker Publishing/Revell, through NetGalley.

What Momma Left Behind is an different kind of story. It begins with a girl, Worie, burying her mother who shot herself. She finds that her Momma is feeding many children whose parents have died from various sicknesses. This becomes Worie's calling in life. She has an enemy in her brother, and she learns that he isn't really her brother after all. It's a very different kind of story, and there is zero romance in this story. I liked it okay.

Seventeen year old Worie lost her Mom in Sourwood Mountain Tennessee, in the year 1877. Tuberculosis and influenza had taken many lives, especially adult lives, but Wories' mother had shot herself in the head.
Worie buried her Mom, with her neighbor Ely's help and fell asleep. Her brother Calvin showed up the next day demanding a jar Worie's mother had hidden from the rest of the family. It held a few coins and a bunch of notes with Bible verses on them. Worie denied knowing where the jar was, so Calvin tried to strangle her and she shot a hole behind him in the wall and said she had one more shot left.
The next day Worie hears a noise and finds a young girl trailing her, she is Doanie Whitefield, one of the many children her mother fed, when their parents sickened or died. Doanie has a younger sister and brother with her, and Worie finds out their mother is dead and takes them in.
But Calvin comes back and has a note that evicts them from the house, now what?

1877, Appalachian Mountain, Tennessee.
The book is written in first person, with a slang-english I suppose, a bit difficult for me because english isn't my mother-language.
The story is fast to read, detailed, emotional.
IN the mountain a big sad fever is around, many people dead.
Worie is 17 yo, her Momma teach her to read and write, to ride into the vagon, to grow the garden, to can vegetables..
"Mountain women shovel their feelins over the shoulder and go on."
Thank you for let me read this book to the author, Interview&Review, Revel, Netgalley.

Worie, age 17, lives in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1870s. It is a hard life, but the only one she knows. Influenza and typhoid ravage her spread-out community, leaving behind a growing number of orphaned children with no way to care for themselves. Worie’s mother has been secretly feeding a number of these little ones on Sourwood Mountain. But when she dies suddenly, Worie is left to figure out, first of all, how to feed them, and then why she is caring for them. She has two worthless brothers, one in jail for drunkenness and one running wild, cheating, lying and stealing.

One of her brothers is obsessed with finding Mama's jar, which Worie has hidden away. It contains some pieces of paper, a couple of coins and a red bead. A couple of other children show up carrying red beads, identical to the one in Mama's jar. Now Worie has another mystery to solve. She fights to save her home and save the children who rely on her for their care.

Throughout the story, Worie's faith and the faith of her mother, sustain her.

Readers that enjoy Appalachian fictions will enjoy this story. I found the dialect a little hard to understand at times. Worie was quite the character, the true epitome of a mountain girl during this time period. Some readers will be able to relate to Worie's struggle to understand her parent's faith. Recommended!

17-year-old Worie Dressar, recently orphaned, suddenly finds herself taking care of four orphaned stray children in her rural Appalachian cabin. Left to fend for herself by her two older brothers, Worie does the best she can to care for the children in her severely reduced circumstances. When trouble strikes what's left of her family farm, will she be able to keep everyone safe?

Filled with many authentic period details, this story is at once heartbreaking and inspiring. Based upon true events which happened in the Appalachian region in the 1800s, when many children were orphaned due to an influenza epidemic, the saga is a fictionalized account of these tragic times. With the many plot twists and multi-dimensional characters, this would be a worthy addition to any historical fiction collection.

I was not expecting such an emotional book when I started it. But reading this in quarantine, gave me a new appreciation for fever and its spread. For the most part I truly enjoyed by the book, but there were parts that felt more like listening to a sermon than reading the book. It slowed the book tremendously and I was disappointed it did not seem to move the plot or help me understand the characters more. The ending was sufficient, but I was disappointed in it. It didn't seem to live up to the rest of the story.