Tuesday, November 15, 2011

"Wonderland Creek," by Lynn Austin

"Wonderland Creek," by Lynn Austin

Alice Grace Ripley lives in a dream world, her nose stuck in a book. But the happily-ever-after life she's planned on suddenly falls apart when her boyfriend breaks up with her, accusing her of living in a world of fiction instead of the real one. To top it off, Alice loses her beloved library job because of cutbacks due to the Great Depression.
Longing to run from small-town gossip, Alice flees to the mountains of eastern Kentucky to deliver five boxes of donated books to the tiny coal-mining town of Acorn, a place with no running water, no electricity, and where the librarians ride ornery horses up steep mountain passes to deliver books. When Alice is forced to stay in Acorn far longer than she planned, she discovers that real-life adventure, mystery--and especially romance--may be far better than her humble dreams could have imagined.

This story sucked you in right from the beginning.  I loved how one country has such great contrasts in the way they lived even in the 1930's.  Alice was the perfect heroine and you just wanted her to succeed.  The one thing I didn't like about this book was the way it ended.  Now if there was a sequel to this book, I'd be happy, but I don't see anywhere where it says there will be a sequel.  To my mind it just ended before the story was finished.

As I love Kentucky I found the history of the way they live down there fascinating.  Also I had never heard of the Packhorse Library Project and it is a subject that I'd like to read about further.

Stars out of 5: 4.5, this was a book that not only told a great story but you learned something as well.  The only thing that let it down was the ending, but I would recommend you read it.

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.


Available at your favourite bookseller from Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group".

3 comments:

Rose said...

This sounds interesting...I just got a kindle and got one of her books free and it was pretty good. I think I had read something by her before....

Stella Jones said...

Thank you for the review of this interesting sounding book. It does look like a good read for a rainy afternoon!

DeniseinVA said...

Sounds like a good book, very nice review, thanks Gill.

{{{SIGH}}}

Tuesday was a mixed bag type of day. Had the appliance repair guy come again to install another circuit board in the fridge.  When hubby got...