On Turpentine Lane

Genre: Fiction

This is the story of Faith Frankel who returns to her home town in Massachusetts and to her old high school as a development professional writing thank you letters to generous donors. Faith's office mate, Nick, is very supportive during a work event that has her questioning her job. Her fiance is traversing the United States in search of himself or something else, but no one is really sure what. Faith's parents divorced when she was young, but her father has fallen in love anew and Faith has to figure out how to navigate a relationship with the new woman in his life. She has recently bought a falling-apart-charming cottage that was a steal, but is finding remnants of the former owner's life which have her wondering what really happened in her home many years ago. Faith's professional, personal, love and home lives all converge into one in this light, comedic romp of a story. This is a story of learning to juggle all the balls life throws at us and learning to keep them all up in the air.

I've been unlucky in reading recently. This book is probably number five in a series of mediocre stories I've read. They've been beach-like reads that have just OK story lines and not great writing so I haven't written any reviews, which means that I'll forget all about them in a few weeks's time. But, this one has been one of the better of the series in unsuccessful reads. Perhaps it's the lovely cottage that is described in this story or that I, too, used to write thank you letters to generous donors (but I was terrible at it...hence why I don't do it anymore!), but this one was worthwhile reviewing. If you're into light stories with some silly antics, this might be just for you...especially if you can picture yourself reading this book on the beach with the sound of waves breaking on the sand in the background.