The Restoration of Celia Fairchild by Marie Bostwick

 

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This was another book I saw at B&N and the cover grabbed me right away. It didn't look like a romantic comedy (it isn't), and when I read the blurb on the back cover, well, seeing it was set in Charleston had me adding it to my stack of books. I left B&N that day with a hefty bag of books and zero regret. Which, to be honest, is how I always leave B&N. 

I'll be honest again and say I started reading it and thought, uh oh, I don't think I'm prepared to read a novel about a woman who is seeking to adopt a baby. It just wasn't what I was looking to read about. However, I kept reading (it was a welcome break from The Sanatorium!) and sure enough I got past the first 50 pages and settled into a charming novel about creating a family and finding a new beginning when it seems that all is lost. 

Celia Fairchild is newly divorced and working in New York City as the popular newspaper advice columnist Dear Calpurnia. She's decided the only way to have the family she desires is to adopt a baby on her own. Marching into her boss' office, she's prepared to ask for a raise in order to help finance a new place to live-a place to raise a baby. 

However, Celia finds herself unemployed and devastated by the sudden turn of events. Soon after, she receives a phone call from a lawyer in Charleston, telling her she is the sole heir to her Aunt Calpurnia's home and she must come down to take care of it. Celia hadn't spoken to her Aunt in years, and feels horrible Calpurnia died without Celia making her peace. With no job on the horizon, she heads to Charleston.

What Celia finds is a big surprise, and the beginning of a brand new life-one that Celia isn't sure she wants. However, she's a potential match for a baby, and has twelve weeks to get the house in shape for a visit by the birth mother. And the house is a DISASTER. A host of characters enter the picture-neighbors, an ex-con contractor, a delightfully sunny young man who works at a local coffee shop; even an old high school friend. And yes, the lawyer who wears ill-fitting suits even shows up to help Celia. Little does Celia know it, but her family is taking shape and changing her life. 

As I said before, this was a charming novel. I am always up for a novel where people are starting over, changing their life in big and small ways, and discovering what makes them truly happy. Time and time again, what we think we want and what we actually need are usually two different things-and it can take big changes to recognize the difference. For Celia, it's a big change in both her attitude and her idea of a picture perfect life that generate her happily ever after. 

There are some interesting issues throughout this book: most importantly, the issues of loneliness and isolation. Family, forgiveness, doing what's right versus doing what society thinks is proper. Understanding we have a family we are born into, and a family we create from those around us who support, nurture, and love us through all the crap. 

If you're looking for a gentle read, this is it. Marie Bostwick has written many other novels, and I suspect they are also gentle reads, too. There is a letter from the author in the back, as well as reading group questions. This is the kind of novel you finish at night before you go to bed, smile, then get a good night's sleep. 

Available in paperback and ebook. 

Rating: 4/6 for a novel that surprised me with the many lively characters and their back stories, the evolution of Celia's life plans, and the happily ever after that was not a big blow out, but a soft, gentle, satisfying conclusion. Oh-there is knitting, too! 

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The Restoration of Celia Fairchild by Marie Bostwick

Bootstrapper: a Memoir by Mardi Jo Link

I found this audio book while rapidly scanning the non-fiction offerings at the library.  I was in a hurry, but I recognized the cover from the bookstore, and remembered that it had intrigued me a few months before, so I checked it out.  

So far I've listened to audio books where the narrator is also the author.  This book was the first one where someone else other than the author narrated it, and I have to admit I had a hard time with that for the first day of listening on my commute.  So much so that I almost stopped listening.  I'm glad I kept plowing through (also I didn't have another audio book to get me through the weekly commute!) because I ended up looking forward to listening to Mardi's life in Michigan.  But while I did enjoy it for the most part, I have a few issues with the memoir.

Mardi Jo Link was a woman with a 19 year marriage and three young boys, living in an old farmhouse (with a half-done remodeling project) on a  6 acre spread in Michigan.  Her marriage falls apart, and her husband moves across the street, leaving Mardi with what she calls Happy Valley.  She's always dreamed of living on an acreage, growing her own food, and having horses.  Now that she's finally got that, her impending divorce and lack of money threaten to take it all away.  Mardi is a tough woman, but sometimes I felt she was too willing to take the extremely hard road instead of confessing to her parents that she was in some financial trouble.  I feel that her absolute determination to keep her farm and raise her boys on it sometimes kept her from asking for help.  It's no shame to ask for help when you are struggling.  Yes, grit and determination are all well and good, but also being sensible and making sure you've got heat and food on the table to feed your kids is important  too.  Her parents would have helped her in a second.  That was a big beef for me.  

This memoir is about the year following the end of Mardi's marriage, and the ways she and her boys kept things moving along in the dead of winter:  scouting around for firewood, winning a year's supply of free day-old bread at a local bakery by growing the largest zucchini; applying for free school lunches for her boys.  And then there is the local carpenter, Pete, who is waiting for Mardi to give him the okay to finish the remodel of her second floor.  There's a whiff of romance there that flits in and out of the story, and I did like that.  It was unexpected by both Mardi and me as the reader.  She most definitely wasn't looking for romance that first year. 

**warning all animal lovers and/or vegetarians!**

 I got the biggest laugh over the chickens she bought as chicks to raise for food.  Mardi and her sons decide not to name them, as they will be food eventually.  Instead they call them "the meats".  I found that really funny, and I don't know why.  What's even more amusing is that when it came time to do the deed, Mardi couldn't do it.  Instead she ended up giving the chickens away, and made herself feel better by realizing that the people who took the chickens needed them more than she did in her diminished financial situation.

So does Mardi hang onto her farm?  How does she do it, if she does succeed?

For the most part, I liked this memoir.  I like to read about women who move through the difficult parts of life and come out the other side stronger and smarter than before.  I admire Mardi for deciding that come hell or high water, she was going to hang onto her farm, her childhood dream, and her desire to raise her sons her way.  That fire kept her tough when she didn't know what to do, and was often at her wit's end.  But much of this drama probably could have been if not eliminated, at least diminished if she'd just asked for help.  I think part of being a strong person is having the strength to ask for a hand when you need it and accepting help with grace.  

Rating:  6/10 for an entertaining memoir.  Mardi  can write very well, and I had moments of tearing up and laughing out loud.  But, I was annoyed that she refused to ask for help.  That caused some teeth gnashing on my part.  I still prefer to hear the author narrate their audio book instead of an actor. 

Available in hardcover, paperback, e-book, and audio. 

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Bootstrapper: a Memoir by Mardi Jo Link