Wish You Well is a family tale about two children set in the 1930s and 1940s whose father is killed in a car wreck and whose mother has been nonresponsive since, although she recovered from her physical injuries. It’s a story about family, love, struggle and triumph.
It’s told from the viewpoint of a young girl, Louisa Cardinal, who comes from New York City to rural Virginia to live with her great-grandmother. It’s a major culture shock for the girl, but the setting resonated for me.
My grandfather came from the same area, and although raised in Missouri, not Appalachia, I have a very deep love for the region and have visited many times. The great-grandmother reminds me of my own, who we called grandmammy. The depiction of life is accurate and comes from Balducci’s own family heritage.
I became engrossed in the book from the moment I read the first page. It’s very different from Balducci’s other novels but is now my favorite of his works.
Following a family tragedy, siblings Lou and Oz must leave New York and adjust to life in the Virginia mountains--but just as the farm begins to feel like home, they'll have to defend it from a dark threat in this New York Times bestselling coming-of-age story.
Precocious twelve-year-old Louisa Mae Cardinal lives in the hectic New York City of 1940 with her family. Then tragedy strikes--and Lou and her younger brother, Oz, must go with their invalid mother to live on their great-grandmother's farm in the Virginia mountains.
Suddenly Lou finds herself growing up in a new landscape, making her…
After watching the movie based on the novel A Man Called Otto, I read the book. The story of an angry, grumpy old man who wants to end his life after his wife’s death caught my attention.
Ove is the neighborhood busybody. He watches over the housing, tries to insist others do the same and is thoroughly obnoxious most of the time.
Yet, as the story unfolds, he finds himself drawn into life, becoming involved with a young couple and their children. He teaches the young woman how to drive and ends up driving her to the hospital when her child is born.
The story is interspersed with the back story about Ove’s life, which helps the reader to understand how he became who he is today. His activities change his outlook on life.
'A JOY FROM START TO FINISH' - Gavin Extence, author of THE UNIVERSE VERSUS ALEX WOODS
There is something about Ove.
At first sight, he is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots - neighbours who can't reverse a trailer properly, joggers, shop assistants who talk in code, and the perpetrators of the vicious coup d'etat that ousted him as Chairman of the Residents' Association. He will persist in making his daily inspection rounds of the local streets.
Finn O’Donnell is a hero, an Afghanistan veteran, and an Army sniper who buys a ranch in Texas and plans to settle down for a peaceful life.
That changes when his former spotter, Callie Brewster, arrives seeking a place to stay, seeking safety for herself and her young nephew.
Both suffer some PTSD, which I’ve written about. It’s a subject very meaningful to me because one of my grandfathers, a Missouri farm boy, served in the Pacific during World War II, primarily in the Philippines, and came home with PTSD, although it was not yet called such. His experiences affected the rest of his life, and so reading another work with characters working through the same caught my heart.
I rejoiced for the characters, wept with them, and became very involved in their story. I wished it could continue and not end.
New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown introduces readers to the world of Burnt Boot, Texas, in this beloved holiday cowboy romance.
All he wants for Christmas is peace and quiet…
After two tours in Afghanistan, retired Army sniper Finn O'Donnell believes his new ranch outside the sleepy little town of Burnt Boot, Texas, is the perfect place for an undisturbed holiday season. But before this brave cowboy can settle in, an old friend shows up looking for protection and a place where nobody knows her name.
Oklahoma saddle bronc champion Lamont Fortune lives a lonely life. He has a family he doesn’t see very often, and although he was once a man of faith, his has faded. He’s late getting out on the circuit this year, but before he can put his spurs on for the season, his life changes when he takes in a neighbor’s stepson after a fatal overdose. When the boy’s aunt arrives from New York City, it’s complicated. Matilda Mannheim and Lamont bristle, but when they learn Shayne can’t leave the state, Lamont is the only option. Lamont nicknames her ‘Tilly,’ and both realize they misjudged the other. With many challenges looming, Tilly has the faith he lacks. As he takes tentative steps toward God, he resists prayer until everything changes. His chance to build a life with Shayne and Tilly depends on whether he can make the right choices and, most of all if he can manage a prayer.
