Howard Books (March 4, 2008)
Clayburn is a town you fall for fast and hard thanks to Raney’s vivid prose and fluent storytelling abilities. I’ve always wanted to live in a quiet peaceful town with few distractions and disruptions rather than amidst the hustle and bustle of metropolitan areas. After reading this series I almost feel like I did reside in Clayburn for a brief span of hours and I found a wealth of new friends amongst its residents while I was there. In this particular visit we encounter Vienne Kenney who wanted nothing more than to “get out of Dodge†so enrolled in law school in California to do just that. However following a second attempt to pass the Bar Exam she finds herself back in Clayburn renovating her mother’s Café and running the new coffee shop in town while her mother is residing at the retirement home nearby following a stroke. Vienne still insists she wants to leave once again despite her second unsatisfactory score on the Exam that holds the key to her career. In the meantime she meets Jackson Linder, now grown and fighting to keep his sobriety intact. As teens she had the typical schoolgirl crush on this “older man†who didn’t seem to know she existed. However, knowing only her alcoholic father who never cared to fight for sobriety much less to keep it and was abusive when under the influence to both her and her mother, Vienne is afraid to risk letting her budding feelings for Jack have free rein. Will he prove himself a better man than her father and worthy of her love and devotion? Can they both let go of the past and move forward whether together or on separate paths with God steering them?
Raney has once again brought readers back to a more sedate pace and a tranquil life that most of us do not have a chance to experience otherwise in this world that constantly hurtles us in whatever direction. You’ll fall in love with Clayburn all over again, reconnect with old friends from Remember to Forget and meet new ones along the way. (ISBN# 9781416558293, 384pp, $12.99)
Codicil:
Visit Deborah’s site. Also don’t forget to click the bookcover above to purchase your own copy or read more about the book. Also be sure to pick up a copy of Remember to Forget (Clayburn #1) and the rest of the Clayburn series as well.
