When principal ballerina Sasha Davis suffers a career-ending injury at age thirty-eight, she leaves her Boston-based dance company and retreats to the home of her youth in Minnesota. But Sasha’s injuries restrict her movement and her recently deceased mother’s absence haunts her. Since she can’t recover alone, she is forced to hire a temporary live-in aide.
Enter the ubercapable Evelyn Burt. As large-boned as Sasha is tiny, Evelyn is her employer’s opposite in every way. Small town to Sasha’s urban chic, outgoing warmth to Sasha’s aloof iciness, and idealistic where Sasha is hopeless, nineteen-year-old Evelyn is newly engaged and sees the world as one big, shiny opportunity.
Charlene Ann Baumbich is an award-winning journalist who speaks and writes about the layers of life as she sees them, which is often slightly off center, mostly dead-on, and always through lenses of grace. Her highly successful Dearest Dorothy series of novels celebrate octogenarian spitfire Dorothy Jean Wetstra and the residents of small-town Bartonville. Her nonfiction titles range from Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This to Don’t Miss Your Kids!. Charlene speaks to the heart, the funny bone, and a broad age span. For more than a decade, Charlene has presented her most requested talk–“Don’t Miss Your Life!”–to audiences across the country and in Canada. Her creative pedal is to the floor, her energized words are ripe, her cranky gallbladder has been “left behind,” and her message is right on time. Yes, fasten your seatbelts!
My Impressions:
Charlene Baumbich’s Dearest Dorothy series is one of my all time favorite small town reads. And while I had heard something about a new Snow Globe series, I had not gotten the chance to check them out until given the opportunity to read and review Finding Our Way Home (book 3). Each book is a standalone novel with snow globes as the common connection. And because I found Finding Our Way Home to be such a delightful read, I am eager to add the first two books to my TBR pile.
Sasha Davis has had her ballet career cut short by a devastating fall. Leaving her world and life behind she returns to her small hometown in Minnesota to recuperate. Needing help with everyday tasks, she hires larger than life, nineteen year old, Evelyn as her assistant. The two women, so opposite in their physical appearance, are both strong-willed and stubborn — good matches for this heart-warming story. I really liked these two characters. Coming from such different lives and backgrounds, they grow in their relationship, grow in their maturity, and grow in the affections of the reader. The theme of grace being sufficient woven throughout the story caused this reader to stop and think. Written especially for women readers, this character driven novel also contains a very sweet love story.
Highly Recommended.
(Thank your to Waterbrook/Multnomah for a review copy of Finding Our Way Home. The opinions expressed are mine alone.)
I read this book a few months ago and really enjoyed the characters and the friendship that developed between the two.
I did too. Looking forward to reading the first 2 in the series.