What would you
do if you discovered that your past wasn’t what you’d been brought up to
believe? If you’re Kelli Huddleston, you drive across the country to find
answers. She’d always been told that her mother and two older siblings died in
a house fire when she was an infant and that they’d come to central California (just
outside of Santa Barbara) from Louisiana. But names aren’t matching up, and
there are news clippings about a boat accident in South Carolina killing a
young father and his infant daughter …
Armed with Miscellaneous and Odds and
Ends, she takes off for Shoal Creek, Tennessee. Kelli intends to stay for a
week, but that week turns into a temporary summer job at Moore’s More Store and
a rental unit to reside in. She has a boss (Ken Moore a.k.a. Kenmore) who
values honesty, the boss’ son (Shane) who’s more than a little suspicious of
her intentions in tiny Shoal Creek, new friends in Beth & Rand and Miss
Birdyshaw, and a very mom-like figure in Alison Waters. Her life is going to do
a 180, and Kelli’s not sure she can handle it, especially when the spark of
romance lights within her and she becomes closer to a few of Shoal Creek’s
residents. Should Kelli throw the doors open wide and discover what she may? Or
are some doors better left shut?
On top of the tragedy of losing
loved ones, Kelli also deals with the horrific realization that her life could’ve
been completely different with a birthmother and siblings and that her father
was a lout for what he did. It’s a story of contemporary Christian fiction, yet
it’s written so realistically. Sadness, despair, anger, denial, acceptance – it’s
all there, and I felt it as a reader, but I also felt Kelli’s joys and doubts in
connecting with those she never knew. I rooted for her the entire time. Cushman’s
story is one of rising above grief and adversity. But perseverance, too, to
find the missing pieces Kelli never knew she was missing. It is a winsome,
well-written tale.