Sunday, July 30, 2017

Review: Tiny House on the HIll

Title: Tiny House on the Hill (A Tiny House Novel)
Author: Celia Bonaduce
Publisher: 15 August 2017 by Kensington Books, Lyrical Press.
Pages: 304 pages
How I Read It: ARC book
Genre: Women's Fiction
My Rating: 3.5 cups

Synopsis:

Home is where the heart fits . . .

Summer Murray is ready to shake things up. She doesn’t want to work in risk management. She doesn’t want to live in Hartford, Connecticut. So she plans a grand adventure: she’s going to throw out all the stuff she doesn’t want and travel the country in her very own tiny house house shaped like a train caboose. Just Summer, her chihuahua-dachshund Shortie, and 220 square feet of freedom.

Then her take-no-prisoners grandmother calls to demand Summer head home to the Pacific Northwest to save the family bakery. Summer has her reasons for not wanting to return home, but she’ll just park her caboose, fix things, and then be on her way. But when she gets to Cat’s Paw, Washington, she’s shocked by her grandmother’s strange behavior and reunited with a few people she’d hoped to avoid. If Summer is going to make a fresh start, she’ll have to face the past she’s been running from all along . . . 

My Thoughts:

One day, Clarissa (Summer) Murray finds herself at a cross roads in her life (instigated by the accidental shrinking of a cashmere jumper of all things!) and decides to quit her risk management job, downsize her life, and hit the road with her dog, Shortie, in a caboose shaped Tiny House, with grand plans to make and sell home-made purses at craft markets across the country.

Just before Summer embarks upon her adventure she is contacted by her irascible Grandmother Queenie, who demands she return to Cat’s Paw Washington to help save the family bakery, Dough Z Dough. Even though she is reluctant to face the people she left behind Summer decides to make Cat’s Paw the first stop on her adventure so that she can fix what needs fixing and then move on to her life on the road.  After collecting her new home from the intriguing and attractive tiny house designer/builder Bale (the king of mixed messages and “maybe” flirting!) Summer’s trip across country provides a number of amusing insights for the reader into the life of the tiny house traveller. From dealing with surly tiny-house-hating RV park operators, unravelling the intricacies involved with the proper Walmart over-night parking etiquette, and accepting the difficulties of parking the whole rig to do a spot of shopping, the reader follows Summer's journey as she makes her way back home.  There, parked in her snug little home atop her favourite hill, she must not only come to terms with all the issues that she had turned her back on years before, she must also make some decisions about her first love vs. the new-comer vying for her affections.

A story of second chances, growth and acceptance, Tiny House on the Hill is a charming read that cleverly taps into the reader’s curiosity about the life and travels of the Tiny House community. Let’s face it, haven’t we all watched the Tiny House reality TV shows and thought to ourselves …..”why not me?”. While for me, the romantic resolution wasn't as satisfying as I like, it was overall, a delightful story and I look forward to reading more by this author.  A solid 3.5 stars from me!

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release



No comments:

Post a Comment