Just fine With Caroline
by Annie England Noblin
From the author of Sit! Stay! Speak! comes a tender, terrific novel complete with long-buried secrets, a three-legged pot belly pig, and an irresistible dog--an unforgettable story about love, friendship, and community. Perfect for fans of Mary Kay Andrews and Mary Alice Monroe.
Caroline O'Connor never dreamed she'd be back home in Cold River, Missouri, the Ozark Mountain town where everyone is 'up your business.' They mean well as they drive you crazy. She thought she'd left town for good, but now she's back, helping to care for her New York born mother--struck with Alzheimer's, and prone to saying and doing anything--and her father, the beloved local doctor frustrated he can't cure his own wife.As for Caroline, she's doing 'just fine' coping with her parents, her brazen cousin Ava Dawn's marital disasters, her mostly-deaf dog, and with Noah Cranwell--far-flung relative of a local family mostly infamous for running moonshine, an ex-veteran who's come to Cold River with troubles of his own. Caroline believes she knows everything about Cold River and the people who live in its hills and hollers but sometimes life's greatest surprises happen closest to home.
I found Just Fine With Caroline to be a sweet but slow-to start story. I have recently been reading a lot of Rom-Suspense and that may be why I found it a bit slow and difficult to get into. Once I started powering through the book, I discovered a sweet tale about a young lady who's life has been put on the back burner to help everyone else around her.
Caroline has come home to help with her Mother who has Alzheimer's and to help run the family bait business in the sleepy little tourist town she grew up in. Noah, a long-lost member of the town's slightly infamous family has also come home to start over and rebuild what once was his family's business. There is a lot of small town people getting up into everyone's business _ i really got a chuckle out of these secondary characters. There are small town secrets that have been hidden for years and eventually come out, and of course the sweet love story between Noah & Caroline.
Annie England Noblin lives with her son, husband, and three dogs in the Missouri Ozarks. She graduated with an M.A. in creative writing from Missouri State University and currently teaches English and communications for Arkansas State University in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She spends her free time playing make-believe, feeding stray cats, and working with animal shelters across the country to save homeless dogs.
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