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One Day In Apple Grove (2013)

by C.H. Admirand(Favorite Author)

3.56 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1402269021 (ISBN13: 9781402269028)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Sourcebooks Casablanca

series

Small Town USA

review 1: I love books such as Jan Karon's wonderful "Mitford" series, with rich characters and evocative locales, believable plots and well-crafted prose. This is not such a book.When I saw that there was a series, I thought, "Well, this author must be decent if she's had a number of books published." I was most disappointed. It is an odd book, to say the least, with fairly graphic sex scenes plunked in the middle of discussions about lost puppies and nosy neighbors. The writing is unimaginative and repetitive; if the author used the word "rasped" once, she used it a dozen times to evoke the sound of a character's voice while either in the throes of passion or under stress of some kind. I guess I've read too much well-crafted fiction lately; this doesn't measure up, in any way ... more(except for the charming cover.)
review 2: So once again we have the All-American hero, Jack. A nice boy from a small town who did his family, and his country proud, by being a medic overseas in the field of war. He came back and took over his father’s small practice in Apple Grove, Ohio. He is scarred, both inside and out, though he doesn’t let anyone see it.You also have Cait, one of three sisters, who is taking over the majority of her dad’s handyman business, though she’d really love to pursue her dreams and goals as a carpenter — a damn good one, too.They’ve known each other their whole lives but don’t really KNOW each other until Jack returns and she finds his truck pulled to the side of the road, without him in it. She stops to see if everything is alright and is suddenly knocked over by a little ball of fur — a puppy that Jack had pulled over to avoid hitting, and then to run after to try and catch. No name, no collar, no tags — just a little ball of energy. And as she sees Jack walking back to them, limping slightly, she suddenly notices he’s a man — it’s that one moment we all know we get where you suddenly see a person in a totally different light, and bam, all bets are off.This is a very cute story about a lovely couple and a meddling town. As we all know my aversion to the name Jack at this point, we’ll overlook that flaw for a moment. One of the few notes I made to myself as I was reading the book was that Jack has moments where he speaks to Cait as if she is a child or as if he somehow loves her older sister more than he loves her. Now, that may be just part of his character, as he IS older, both in years and experience, but some of the moments just jar with the rest of the story, thus, it jarred this reader. I understand where he’s coming from when he makes the remarks, but they still don’t seem quite cohesive.One big plus from the book is that the reader gets several recipes for homemade deliciousness, including a buttermilk pie, blueberry pandowdy and pandowdy cake mix. Now, before this book, I had no idea what “Pandowdy” was, so for those who are ignorant like me, the Merrium-Webster Online dictionary defines it as a deep-dish spiced apple dessert, sweetened with sugar, molasses or maple syrup and covered with a rich crust. Now my stomach is growling and I want some.There is no great mystery to the story, no huge thrills, though there are some painful moments where Jack has a flashback of the war and what got him hurt in the first place, and that bleeds over onto his relationship with Cait at one point. But it ultimately brings them closer. This is a straight-forward, contemporary romance novel, a sweet book with recipes for those with a sweet tooth. less

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