Book Reviews

A Mile in My Flip-Flops
By Melody Carlson
Published By: Water Brook Press
Page 331

Back Cover:

Seeking solace from a broken heart, Gretchen Hanover traded her wedding plans for home improvement shows and ice cream, but she knows she can’t live on Ben and Jerry’s forever. She also knows that her enthusiastic Lab puppy has outgrown her tiny apartment.

The perfect patch for Gretchen’s dilapidated plans? She’ll become a first-time house-flipper. As ideas go, it’s daring and genius. She’ll take out a short-term loan, buy a fixer-upper, renovate it, resell it, and use the profit for an adorable house of her own.

But Gretchen’s plans to flip quickly flop when the house turns out to be in worse shape than she expected. She is relying on her retired –father, but he wants to draw in his carpenter friend Noah Campbell. And although Noah is handy with tools, Gretchen isn’t so sure about the baggage he brings with him.

A whimsical look at color swatches, mismatched curtain rods, and the building of relationships, A Mile in My Flip-Flops reminds readers that it takes faith to renovate the heart, as well as the home.

Review:

This story drew me in quickly as I couldn’t stop laughing as I read. This story was so true to life. I, too, was the daughter of a building contractor and my dad was one of the original “House-Flippers” long before it was popular. This is a humorous and touching story about a determined and eager “house-flipper” newbie named Gretchen, who is tired of sitting on the couch watching this popular HGTV show. She wants action. A “House-Flipper” is someone who buys dilapidated houses in good neighborhoods, fixes them up and hopefully sells them for a profit. Gretchen has been a faithful viewer for 18 months now and knows she has an advantage most of these contestants don’t have – her father is a contractor. She has watched him build houses for years. She is confident and ready to tackle the challenge of flipping a house herself – she’s watched the shows and her dad, what more was there?

Gretchen soon learns they don’t show every possible scenario on “House-Flippers”. And, just because she has watched her dad do construction all of her life, it’s completely different when the hammer is in your own hand and you have to hit the nail on the head. The show and her dad made this look a lot easier than it is. Unlike Gretchen, who is confident about going to Home Depot or Lowes and buying construction supplies, I hated this task when I was a kid. I never could find what my dad was looking for even though I had him write it down on a piece of paper and had help from the workers in the store. Gretchen moves through the store with the greatest of ease and always finds what she is looking for. How does she do that?

Gretchen and her dad were going to renovate this house in six weeks. Wow!! I would have loved it if the remodeling projects my dad did took as little as six weeks! He did all the work himself after putting in a full day on his own jobs. He also worked weekends fixing up the house. I remember the time when he remodeled our kitchen. We were without kitchen cabinets, the floor was all torn up and we had no working stove or sink. We washed our dishes in the bath tub and got really good at cooking on a Coleman camping stove. My mother was very creative and patient most of the time during that renovation. Remodeling is stressful on family relationships – I know, I’ve lived it firsthand. Gretchen gleaned this from watching her TV show. She didn’t want to put stress and strain on her relationship with her dad during this house flip. She wanted them to have fun.

As a friend reminds Gretchen in the middle of this project, “Life doesn’t always meet our expectations.” How true that is. Gretchen learns many things about herself and life while remodeling this house. As Gretchen and her dad start to clean up this unbelievably horrible, smelly house, and start to make changes for the good, they uncover many surprises and challenges.

Don’t judge a book by its cover – especially this one. I would have never suspected that this book was about “house-flipping” from the outside. But trust me when I say that you will totally enjoy the inside of this book. And, you may learn a thing or two about relationships, but there is definitely something to learn about “house-flipping”. I love Melody Carlson’s writing, the topic of this story and this book in general.

Reviewed: Nora St. Laurent

Original post by Kelly Klepfer

Calico Canyon
Mary Connealy
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc (July 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1597899380

Product Description

Let yourself be swept away by this fast-paced romance, featuring Grace Calhoun, an instructor of reading, writing, and arithmetic, who, in an attempt to escape the clutchs of a relentless pursuer, runs smack dab into even more trouble with the 6R’s – widower Daniel Reeves, along with his five rowdy sons. When a marriage is forced upon this hapless pair – two people who couldn’t dislike each other more – an avalanche isn’t the only potential danger lurking amid the shadows of Calico Canyon. Will they make it out alive? Or end up killing each other in the process?

My Review:

Western/prairie/frontier romance is probably the last genre I’d pick to read. Forgive me if you are a fan. I’m not knocking the category, just sharing that it’s not a favorite.

I had an earlier opportunity to read Calico Canyon and I passed. Honestly, I have piles of books to read and if I think I might not like something I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to review it with any sort of glow. I don’t like investing hours into a story and not being able to write a review with some praise. Then the darn thing showed up in my mailbox. While waiting on a kid and with some time to kill, I opened the cover. If someone can catch me with the first sentence or paragraph, I’m along for the ride.

That said, I so enjoyed Calico Canyon. Mary Connealy is amusing and her characters are charming. She had me in the first scene and I read the story with a smile and even tense concern over the well-being of the characters. Connealy does the genre proud. Though she hasn’t converted me completely, I will snatch up her next novel.

This is a great “kick off your shoes” and “set a spell” novel. I recommend it to those who love frontier/western romance, prairie romance and, well, anyone else who might like to read an entertaining,well-written novel.

Reviewed by: Kelly Klepfer

Original post by Kelly Klepfer

Original post by Kelly Klepfer

The Reluctant Journey of David Connors
By Don Locke
Published by Navpress
ISBN#978-1-60006-152-4
Pages 269

Back Cover:

On a cold winter night, David Connor contemplates a leap off a skyscraper hoping to end the pain of his crippling alienation from his family and his anger and resentment toward God. But his attention is strangely drawn to a nearby bundle half buried on the snowy ledge. David uncovers an old carpetbag that he soon learns possesses the unique ability to conjure up peculiar gifts for people he encounters – items that are exactly what they need.

One such stranger is the sweet but feisty Maggie, who gets swept up in the mystery as the miraculous carpetbag leads them both on an imaginative journey, challenging David’s heart as it illuminates their steps. David’s destination slowly unfolds like a distant bittersweet memory in this tender and often humorous tale of grace and redemption.

REVIEW:

Things were just fine with David until Kathy, the love of his life, became born again. He went to church a few times with her, but he didn’t like how he felt there and didn’t go back. The marriage counselor told him he needed to get in touch with his feelings – he drank out of fear and to make himself numb. What did the counselor know anyway! That’s what he thought then, but here he was out on this ledge despising God for this screwed up life. He was feeling too much now – he wanted it to stop. How could Kathy tell him that this temporary separation wasn’t working – couldn’t she see how miserable he was and all that he had done for her? It couldn’t be over!!

After David found a carpetbag while out on the ledge, mysterious things started to happen. He suspected that the carpetbag was providing gifts people really needed. David decides to test this theory on Maggie, a relative stranger. As they both sit in a bar, David drank coffee to sober up – this bag had him spooked. Maggie and David get caught up in a series of unimaginable events and unforseeable journey.

David realizes that his waking hours are becoming more bazaar than his dreams. He expects Rod Serling to jump out any minute to tell him he has just entered the 5th dimension of his imagination called the “Twilight Zone”. David knew that he and Maggie were definitely in a new dimension of life, one that had them questioning their sight, sound and their mind. Maggie turns to David and says “You better start believing in something pretty quick here – your running out of options.” That’s so true. Think, think, think…he didn’t want to think! But, Maggie kept telling him he had to decide so that they could go back to life as normal. Only one problem…David wasn’t sure normal existed anymore.

This is one gripping story. I just loved it. I was swept up in this great adventure and at the same time it made me think about the deeper meaning of life. It’s definitely something both Maggie and David needed to find for themselves; it will make the reader think about their own life too. The author Don Locke is a freelance writer and illustrator by trade. I could see him taking his time setting the scene up for the reader . This story starts in a similar way the Twilight Zone shows were set up. Just when you are hooked into the story and you think you know where it’s going, it stops and you enter the ‘weird zone’, as David calls it. The author is a master at doing this. There are many thrills and unexpected events along the way. I was amazed that this was Don Locke’s first book. I’m extremely excited to see what he writes next, and you will too, after reading this unique, surprising adventure story.

Reviewed by: Nora St.Laurent

Original post by Kelly Klepfer