A lovely Midwestern tale that’s as cozy and charming as a B&B.
In Cronk’s inspirational debut novel, a woman moves back to her old hometown to pursue a dream of opening a bed-and-breakfast inn.
Samantha Jarrett is still healing from the recent death of her husband, Roger, when she loses her job as an executive assistant at a small college in Ohio. She returns to her hometown of Freedom, Ind., where she and Roger had once wondered what it would be like to run an inn. To that end, Sam wants to purchase the old Foster house, a prized historic home where elderly June Foster lives; Foster’s family owned a prominent food business in town. More than a few folks in Freedom covet the house, but Mrs. Foster chooses Sam to be the new owner. Sam soon moves in to renovate the place she calls Sweetland of Liberty, but she’s unknowingly made an enemy of her former classmate Ellen Madison, a scion of one of Freedom’s oldest families, who wanted the home for herself. Ellen plots to have the B&B shut down and send Sam packing for Ohio, but she doesn’t know that Sam also relies on her faith in God to help keep the business alive. Cronk’s prose is simple and straightforward (“Sam daydreamed about what life might be like a year or two from now when surely everything had smoothed into a calm routine, and she had a chance, at last, to relax on her own porch, in her own life”), and Sam is a sympathetic heroine, whether she’s getting grief from city fathers over a sign ordinance or baking granola for her guests at midnight. Ellen is a fine villain, and her scenes crackle with tension. The short, snappy chapters will keep readers turning pages, and a climactic courtroom scene offers several surprises. In fact, the author hits such a high note with the scene that it’s a letdown that the book doesn’t end there; it’s as if the story is traveling 100 miles an hour and suddenly hits the brakes to coast. This is a small quibble, however, in a terrific debut, which also includes a separate list of the recipes mentioned in the story.
A lovely Midwestern tale that’s as cozy and charming as a B&B.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1493570362
Page Count: 174
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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