Reviews & Events

Reviews

Events
Iris Underwood creates a beautifully written reflection of the personal joys, accomplishments, trials and misfortunes experienced by immigrants to Appalachia in the early 20th century. It’s a concrete example of how the deep love of horticulture sustains people both financially and therapeutically. One can almost smell and feel the earth as immigrants planted in order to change the rural landscape into a stunning vision. Annie’s authentic humility illustrates the heroically unsung men and women who lived, loved, worked and died with the highest moral code of ethics. The community bore each person’s struggles with love and truly motivates the reader to become a better person by generously helping neighbors’ when in need.

Alice Mary Tocco
Clarkston, Michigan

The action in “The Matewan Garden Club” takes place along the famous Tug River that flows between West Virginia and Kentucky, lands formerly filled with mine wars, a feud between the Hatfields and McCoys and the now disappearing days of fossil fuels.
Charles Bourland

​This wonderful love story between Annie Dill and Henry Blankenship will captivate you. The story takes place in Appalachia. Marrying Henry isn't what Annie's mom had in mind - she had bigger plans. But Annie and Henry are determined, and their story will enchant you.
 Iris has done a great job with character development and you will cry and laugh as the story unfolds. The characters will stay with you long after you've turned the last page.
 It's a glorious story.
 Patti Hacht
Leonard, Michigan

​Matewan Garden Club is a sweeping tale that perfectly mixes botany, history, and beloved characters set in the magical Appalachian region. Within the first few pages, one of the main characters, Olaf, describes the time his great-great-grand-father met George Washington and Thomas Jefferson at Bartram Gardens.
Later, I was thrilled to find mention of one of my absolute heroes, Tolstoy. It’s an intriguing story that reminds us of the miracle of plant life, as well as the importance of community and the need to support one another - topics too often taken for granted.
Laura Matheny
Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan
Matewan Garden Club by Iris Lee Underwood is a novel about faith, family, forgiveness and friendship spanning several generations.  Iris was born in this West Virginia coal mining town and now is bringing Matewan to life in this heartwarming historical fiction.
It all begins with a nine-year-old boy desperate to have his mother’s shovel repaired.
 
I absolutely love the characters!  Each one takes a turn narrating a part of the story.  The author has captured the way the immigrants and Appalachian folk speak, survive and thrive. Young sweethearts Henry and Annie will make readers cry tears of joy and of deepest sorrow as they experience life’s triumphs and tragedies. Just like the seeds sold and plants propagated at Hunt’s Feed & Seed, the unique personalities all grow according to the Creator’s plan.
 
This inspiring book is symbolic but also as down to Earth as the peonies planted in Matewan.  Enjoy!
 Julie Berger-Anderson
Clinton Twp., Michigan 

​I thoroughly enjoyed reading Matewan Garden Club. My husband and I visited Appalachia many years ago. This book gave us an interesting perspective of the history and life in that part of our country.
 
I loved the deeply romantic twist of two very different young people. Their passion for botany and horticulture, despite their educational and cultural differences was touching and refreshing. However, I would have loved to see how their lives would have developed as a married couple despite her sad ending.
 
The various characters from different parts of the world overcame their differences and their love for each other was beautifully illustrated. 
 
I experienced the different emotions of the characters as they demonstrated people are the same despite cultures and countries. Love and faith in God conquers all!
 Linda Weber
Georgetown, Texas
 
In Iris Underwood’s first novel The Mantle, the author creates an imaginary folkloric world and people to celebrate her love of words and language. In Underwood’s second novel, Matewan Garden Club, she uses a very real, folkloric world and people to celebrate her other passions: gardening, botany and Appalachia.

​“There are too few publications,” about Appalachia, notes one of the book’s characters. “It seems journalists and historians have overlooked the immigrants who settled the Appalachian Mountain range.” With Matewan Garden Club the author sets about correcting this slight.

Spanning the years between 1932 and 1959, Underwood gives authentic voice to generations of fictional families that like seeds borne on the winds of war, immigrant dreams and whim, take root and grow in nonfictional Matewan, West Virginia. “The town’s much more than mine wars and the Hatfield-McCoy feud,” says Annie Dill, one of the book’s five narrators. In Matewan Garden Club, it’s a town united by a desire to share the beauty, love and appreciation of blooms both wild and cultivated. It’s a town with drunks and mining accidents and painful pasts, and the dignity and endurance to keep growing in spite of them. With every peony and blackberry lily planted, Matewan Garden Club spreads love and appreciation for the people and land of Appalachia.
​Cathleen Hagan
Dearborn, Michigan
Writer, editor and author of The Hart & Horn
 
Iris Lee Underwood takes readers on an enjoyable journey that features fascinating characters, powerful relationships, and heartbreaking events endured by families, friends, and residents in Matewan, located in hard scrabble West Virginia in the early 1900s. 
 
The bonds that holds the community together are the community’s gardens and the passion of the Matewan Garden Club whose characters are unique, quirky, loyal, nosy, and passionate about making the world a better place through shared flowers, roots, soil, and seeds. The story is told from five different perspectives allowing readers to see how a community has a cast of many characters and how each contributes to the fabric that adds layers of strength and resilience to any town.
 
Henry is a young man trying to cope with a father critically injured in a mining incident, and wanting to help support his mother. When it appears that all hope will be lost, his life changes when he is mentored by Olaf Seminov, a local businessman and a Russian immigrant who is a brilliant botanist and businessman. 
 
Olaf and his mother, Natalia, have left their family behind while escaping the Russian Revolution and are embracing the American dream to proudly carry on his family’s multigenerational heritage in botany and horticulture.
 
Annie Dill is the daughter of the local dentist who fulfills her family’s dream of attending college, the only girl and student in town able to do so. The community embraces her and celebrates her success, none more so than Henry, who sweeps her off her feet, convinces her parents that he is a worthy suitor, and shows a work ethic that will enhance the community and beautify it through gardens and horticulture.
 
Gertie, Henry’s mother, provides Henry with love and support, despite overwhelming hardships raising a young boy as a single parent. Her support shapes every aspect of Henry’s life, and demonstrates how acts of love can affect generations to come. 
 
From the Russian Revolution to immigration to America, to the coal mines of West Virginia, readers will fall in love with the determination of Henry and his passion for taking care of his Mom at a young age. You will cheer for Annie, the girl who represents the hope and dreams of the community. Your heart will break with tragedies, and the hope these characters find in their families, in their community, and in their gardens. 
 
Embracing every personality and event is the power of community contained in the Matewan Garden Club, and the need to be part of something bigger and more beautiful than ourselves and realize how gardens and relationships bloom when given the opportunity.
 
This book allowed me to meet some new best friends, to breathe in the smells of Hunt’s Feed & Seed store, to recognize the need for forgiveness, to plan and plant to provide hope for the future, and to fall in love with peonies, daylilies, and gladiolas.
Patrick J. McKay, Manager
Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm
Rochester, Michigan

"I liked Matewan Garden Club very much. I enjoyed the five different characters and their stories, and the historical fiction used to connect them.  I enjoyed the references to Christianity.  I enjoyed the family stories through three generations and the growth of the younger generations. I smiled at the mention of Warren O'Brien, Iris's father, my barber. He hired me to shine shoes and sweep his barber shop when we were kids. I especially enjoyed the fact that there weren't any evil villains in the story. I'm glad Iris loves writing. She's leaving her mark on the world."
Martin Halaas 
Shelby Twp., Michigan
 
2024 EVENTS
Tues. January 9: Terrific Tuesday, OPC, Rochester, private event
Fri. March 1, 12:30 p.m.:  Addison Twp. Public Library, 1400 Rochester Rd., Leonard, MI
book talk and signing
Saturday, March 23 – Royal Oak Public Library Book & Author Fair: (248) 246-3700
Wed. March 27, 6 p.m.: Royal Oak Public Library, 222 E 11 Mile Rd, Royal Oak, MI 48067, book talk and signing. Registration requested: 248-246-3700