Review: Good Romance, Fun Humor, Good Writing, Punchy Perspective
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 21, 2014
24-year-old Phoebe is a good daughter, working to find a home for her physically-challenged father, stressed mother, asthmatic young brother, precocious pre-teen sister, and a sister whose mind became weak after illness struck.  This story opens with Phoebe trying to find work while traveling with her younger siblings, colliding with Gage Morgan's pickup and creating additional obstacles to overcome.  With little choice but to seek the man who stole her bumper with the vehicle license plate attached, Phoebe challenges the very attractive widower in finances, employment, health concerns, housekeeping, and prideful defense of herself and her desire to be Gage's wife even as she denies her plans to the man that believes she is nothing but a con artist.  Using her "gumption" to weasel her and her siblings' way into his ill-kept home and life of Gage and his daughter, the two clash at every meeting even as Phoebe finds herself attracted to the man for the first time in her life.  As the two learn more about each other, Phoebe keeps a secret that may destroy all the trust and warmth that slowly builds in the man who never thought to allow a woman into his world again.The romance in the story keeps the pages turning, as does the humor that seems almost impossible--yet is so implicit in the characters that the author should be proud of the fun aspects in the story.  The primary issue is an anachronism in that Phoebe's, her family's and her acquaintances' perspectives are straight out of the 1960's back hills' type of character one would expect in a John Steinbeck novel, while Gage, his automobiles, the value of his land and possessions, and his basic education reads more like a much more modern Capote-in-the-making for much of the story.  The five-year-old has an inhaler for his asthma, yet there doesn't seem to be even a twentieth-century explanation for his older sister's mental impairment--and then there's a reference to a middle-aged woman once having a child having rheumatic fever at age 6, implying this to be Erline's issue, too, but such hasn't been a widespread issue for at least fifty years.  Phoebe is like a character from "Coal Miner's Daughter," and Gage is like a character from "The Perfect Storm."  Different eras, different outlooks, different perspectives:  all brought together into a fun romance imbued with good lessons in self-responsibility and self-respect, but having just enough of a anachronistic issue to prevent a five-star rating.