Monday, March 20, 2017

Home At Last by Deborah Raney, with a giveaway

Book description:

Why did their differences matter so much?

Link Whitman has settled into the role of bachelor without ever intending to. Now he's stuck in a dead-end job and, as the next Whitman wedding fast approaches, he is the last one standing. The pressure from his sisters' efforts to play matchmaker is getting hard to bear as Link pulls extra shifts at work, and helps his parents at the Chicory Inn.

All her life, Shayla Michaels has felt as if she straddled two worlds. Her mother's white family labeled her African American father with names Shayla didn't repeat in polite---well, in any company. Her father's family disapproved as well, though they eventually embraced Shayla as their own. After the death of her mother, and her brother Jerry's incarceration, life has left Shayla's father bitter, her niece, Portia, an orphan, and Shayla responsible for them all. She knows God loves them all, but why couldn't people accept each other for what was on the inside? For their hearts?

Everything changes one icy morning when a child runs into the street and Link nearly hits her with his pickup. Soon he is falling in love with the little girl's aunt, Shayla, the beautiful woman who runs Coffee's On, the bakery in Langhorne. Can Shayla and Link overcome society's view of their differences and find true love? Is there hope of changing the sometimes---ugly world around them into something better for them all?

My review:

  This is a difficult book review for me to write. I am not a big romance reader, but I have thoroughly enjoyed this series. I loved the characters, the interaction between family members, and everything about the books. When this one came up for review, I didn't even read the blurb..... I just requested it.

 Anything can get you labeled a racist today. Just not voting for a black president because you don't like his policies gets you labeled a racist. So to say I am not a fan of interracial relationships will definitely get me labeled by that some..... as if we do not have the freedom to feel that way. Anyway, once I found out what the book was about, I kept an open mind and read it. And I didn't care for it. Maybe it is partly because I am a single guy who will never marry, but I kept thinking Link was nuts for still pursuing a relationship with Shayla with all of the roadblocks and how her dad hated white people. (Yeah, I know it is fiction).

  I know there is still racism, but I also know there are a lot of false accusations of racism and some people see it everywhere. It felt to me like the author was pushing the idea that we must all accept interracial marriages, all the while showing what a bad idea it can be. I honestly didn't care for the book, and was sad to see a great series end on this note. I do feel the subject could have been handled better, but the book was a turn off for me. It didn't help that the author referenced the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin cases..... I am not sure if she agrees with the liberals on that, as she didn't say, but it bothered me that she used them as examples. I guess the whole book came across as an agenda to me.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

About the author:


Deborah Raney's novels have won numerous awards including the RITA, National Readers' Choice Award, HOLT Medallion, the Carol Award, and have three times been Christy Award finalists. She and her husband, Ken Raney have traded small-town life in Kansas-the setting of many of Deb's novels-for life in the city of Wichita.

Find out more about Deborah at http://deborahraney.com.


Home At Last, and the rest of the Chicory Inn Series is available from Abington Press.

Thanks to Litfuse Publicity for the review copy.




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Conclude Deborah Raney's Chicory Inn novels with the final book, Home at Last, a story of acceptance, trying to overcome differences, and love. Everything changes for bachelor Link Whitman one icy morning when a child runs into the street and he nearly hits her with his pickup-and then the girl's aunt Shayla enters Link's life. Can Shayla and Link overcome society's view of their differences and find true love? Is there hope of changing the sometimes-ugly world around them into something better for them all?

Join Deborah on Thursday, March 23, for a live author chat party in her Facebook group with fun prizes to be won! Click the graphic below for more details and to RSVP. Hope to see you there-bring a friend or two who loves to read!

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