Kate's retirement plans are put on hold when her old nemesis, Ruby, reappears and both their lives are turned upside down. Two stubborn, independent women discover that the lines between love and hate, and between past and future, are muddled and transitory.
Kate's retirement plans are put on hold when her old nemesis, Ruby, reappears and both their lives are turned upside down. Two stubborn, independent women discover that the lines between love and hate, and between past and future, are muddled and transitory.
Professional Reviews
Chico Enterprise-Record
In “Venice Beach,” Chico novelist Emily Gallo (emilygallo.blogspot.com) created a host of characters connected through the Southern California town’s boardwalk and the mysterious denizen named Jed, an escapee from the Jonestown massacre.
In “Kate and Ruby” ($12.95 in paperback from CreateSpace; also for Amazon Kindle), the author picks up the story of Kate McGee, whose father Jed had helped. Kate is “a thin, fit, spry fifty-five year-old who looked like she hadn’t aged in fifteen years. It also helped that she made sure there wasn’t a gray strand anywhere in her pixie hairstyle.”
Kate had married Martin, whose mother, Ruby, was a blues singer. Ruby had taken great offense at the interracial couple and “Kate had never forgiven her for shunning her as a daughter-in-law just for being white.” Though their love ran deep, the marriage ended in divorce when Martin eventually came out to Kate.
For Ruby, it was the last straw; she “practically disowned Martin for being gay” and didn’t speak to him for three decades. Kate as well had moved on with her life, cultivating a desire to join the Peace Corps.
Then Martin dies of HIV AIDS, and Ruby, in her mid-80s and unwell, is in San Francisco to tend to Martin’s effects. When Kate gets a call from one of Martin’s friends, she arrives and there is Ruby, who soon after has the first in a series of heart attacks. Kate and Ruby find their lives intertwined as Kate becomes the caregiver (and eventually the supplier of medical marijuana).
The story, told mostly in dialogue, shows how time’s dailyness can bring change, as Ruby teaches Kate how to garden and Kate teaches Ruby how to use a computer — which Ruby uses to find Lawrence, Martin’s fraternal twin. Then Kate must choose between a growing love for Lawrence and her Peace Corps commitment.
This is not the life Kate imagined for herself but, as Lawrence puts it (though neither are religious), “Man plans and God laughs.”
Readers' Favorite
Reviewed by Lisa McCombs for Readers' Favorite
Aww… retirement. The event we all anticipate. The golden time of our lives when we can relish that quiet time that years of hard work give back. At least that is what Kate thought as she celebrated the end of her teaching career with dinner and drinks with her closest friends. After a few days of elation, Kate planned to open a new chapter for herself as a travelling Peace Corps volunteer. Her personal life took an uninvited turn with a divorce in earlier years, but that was then. This is now. A phone call interrupts Kate’s plans for the future. The mother-in-law who refused to accept her into Martin’s family was seriously ill and in need of Kate’s attention. Nothing else to do but offer services so many times refused. Just until the Mississippi family could be notified. But, when she realizes that Ruby has no other family, Kate is thrown into a world even more alien than that of international travel.
Kate and Ruby by Emily Gallo is a nostalgic, but realistic journey that introduces the reader to the mystical existence of karma, regardless of the reader’s beliefs. Gallo weaves events into this story of hope and reconciliation that warms the heart. As one reads this relatable narrative, an honest realism of the unpredictable future rears its common, albeit unexpected, head. Kate and Ruby is a lovely story of two strong women searching for acceptance; for one another as well as from life itself. A lovely story!
