BERTIE'S PLACE

In Goodwin’s novel, a new college graduate navigates adulthood in rural Ohio.

In the summer of 2010, recent Ohio State University grad Molly Parsons moves to Winslow, Ohio, a small farming community in the northeast region of the state, to start her teaching career. Her excitement is dampened when her intended roommate, wealthy and entitled Eva Blake, backs out the night before the move. Scrambling to get out of their apartment lease and find somewhere that she can afford on her teacher’s salary while still paying off her student loans, she moves into Bertie’s Place, run by Bertie Evans, who turned her home into a boardinghouse to ease her loneliness after her husband passed away seven years earlier. The other lodgers are Ralph Watson (Bertie’s retired friend) and Joe Stuart, also a teacher in Winslow and coincidentally the principal at the summer school program where Molly will begin teaching. (There are immediate sparks between Molly and Joe, but since he’s her temporary boss, they can’t date during the summer.) Molly enjoys life in Winslow, connecting with colleagues at work and people in town, especially the Young Adult Seekers group at St. Paul Lutheran Church. (“These are young folks like me who have a strong faith. They’re trying hard to incorporate their beliefs into their daily lives.”) As she enthusiastically begins working and cultivating a life in a new setting, she also travels home to Canton during school breaks to help her ailing Aunt Lou and Uncle Roscoe, finding strength in faith and community in the midst of life’s difficulties (including her fraught dynamic with Joe). First-time author Goodwin imbues her true-to-life characters with realistic strengths and weaknesses. Molly is an especially likable and forthright person who grapples with issues of forgiveness, attraction, love, and ethics in a faith-based framework. In Winslow, Ohio, Goodwin has created an endearing small town characterized by strong faith communities and deep friendships without glossing over issues of poverty and poor school funding. This is an enjoyable and thoughtful read.

Faith and romance anchor this absorbing story.