Review: A really good read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 10, 2013
I enjoyed this book from the first page to the last as I read well into the wee small hours to finish it in one sitting.Jennie Jones does a great job of encapsulating the joys, the triumphs and the tribulations of small, rural town life, where everyone knows everyone else... she creates memorable characters from Ruby the pet pig, to Ethan, the hunky vet with a shadowed past who moonlights as a carpenter in his spare time, and Sammy, the new girl in town, and all the townsfolk who run a bet on how long this city girl will hack the slow pace of Swallow Falls.  This book is so full of detail that by the end you feel you've vicariously lived these people's lives, quirky humour, pride, faults and all.In my opinion this book would comfortably sit on the bookshelves alongside and compares very favourably with great authors like Debbie Macomber, Sharon Sala, Nora Roberts and Susan Mallery. Jennie Jones has a real gift, she brings rural town Australia, with all its quirks and foibles, into vivid life.This is one book that I will go back and read again so I can savour the detail and colourful array of characters all over again...from Ruby, the pet pig, to the wise and far seeing Grandy, the patriarch of Swallow Falls.My favourite quote... " though why they call him junior has me beat, he must be at least sixty years old." To me this sums up the flavour of this book, and I look forward to reading more books by this author.