The Filling Station by Vanessa Miller

The Filling Station
by Vanessa Miller

ISBN-13: 9781400344123
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Released: March 11, 2025

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Sisters Margaret and Evelyn Justice have grown up in the prosperous Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma--also known as Black Wall Street. In Greenwood, the Justice sisters had it all--movie theaters and entertainment venues, beauty shops and clothing stores, high-profile businesses like law offices, medical clinics, and banks, all owned by blacks. While Evelyn aspires to head off to the East Coast to study fashion design, recent college grad Margaret plans to settle in Greenwood, teaching at the local high school and eventually raising a family.

Then the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre upends everything they know and brings them unspeakable loss. Left with nothing but each other, the sisters flee along what would eventually become iconic Route 66 and stumble upon the Threatt Filling Station, a safe haven and the only place where they can find a shred of hope in oppressive Jim Crow America. At the filling station, they are able to process their pain and wrestle with a God that has left them feeling abandoned.

But Greenwood needs to be rebuilt. The search for their father and their former life may not give them easy answers, but it can propel them--and their community--to a place where their voices are stronger...strong enough to build a future that honors the legacy of those who were lost.


My Review:
The Filling Station is a Christian historical set in 1921 in Oklahoma and continued for several years after the Tulsa Race Massacre. While well-written, it's not an easy story to read. The point-of-view characters, Margaret and Evelyn, go through the massacre and struggled through the aftermath of rebuilding, when it seemed like no one wanted to help or give them justice. For most of the story, Margaret was full of anger and bitterness while Evelyn just wanted to forget the trauma they'd experienced and seemed determined to self-destruct. Margaret was determined to make things right herself because she didn't believe that God cared or would do so. It's not really until the last 10% of the story that things started to turn around for them.

The main characters were complex and likable, and I cared about what happened to them. They felt like real people. The vivid historical details brought the time and place alive in my imagination without slowing the pacing. Margaret and Evelyn questioned why a good God would allow such injustice and evil to happen. There were no sex scenes. There was no written bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this well-written historical novel.