Wonderland Creek

by Lynn Austin

Lynn Austin Will Delight Readers with Her Winsome Heroine

Alice Grace Ripley lives in a dream world, her nose stuck in a book. But happily-ever-after life she's planned on suddenly falls apart when her boyfriend, Gordon, breaks up with her, accusing her of living in a world of fiction instead of the real world. Then to top it off, Alice loses her beloved job at the library because of cutbacks due to the Great Depression.

Fleeing small-town gossip, Alice heads to the mountains of eastern Kentucky to deliver five boxes of donated books to the library in the tiny coal-mining village of Acorn. Dropped off by her relatives, Alice volunteers to stay for two weeks to help the librarian, Leslie McDougal.

But the librarian turns out to be far different than she anticipated--not to mention the four lady librarians who travel to the remote homes to deliver the much-desired books. While Alice is trapped in Acorn against her will, she soon finds that real-life adventure and mystery--and especially romance--are far better than her humble dreams could have imagined.

• ISBN10: 076420498X
• ISBN13: 9780764204982
• Publish Date: 1 October 2011
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Imprint: Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Publishing Group
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 394
• Language: English

Reviews

[ladygrey]

This is the second book I've read by [a:Lynn Austin|39788|Lynn Austin|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1226549053p2/39788.jpg], which obviously isn't a comprehensive review of her work. But in the two books I've read there's been one similarity I don't like.

Her heroines are naive and self-centered. Which, for me, makes them unlikable. Now, I understand that in the time periods women probably were very sheltered and therefore their naivete is probably historically accurate. I also understand that she's trying to make her heroines flawed so they have a chance to grow and change through the course of the story. Neither of those factors make me like them any more and I don't really enjoy reading books where I don't like the main character, especially when it's written in first person.

The saving grace of this book is that the supporting characters are interesting once you get far enough into it. You kind of have to sludge through the first, probably third of the book but once Allie opens up a little and gets to know the people around her, they're likable and they're fun and they're the reason I kept reading and moderately enjoyed the book.

Also, Austin is weird with her romance. In both books I read she built a romance with one guy then shifted her happy ending to another guy. In the first book ([b:A Proper Pursuit|1793400|A Proper Pursuit|Lynn Austin|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1188425098s/1793400.jpg|1792389]) it was less obvious because there were a couple of guys she had in the fire and it's more a matter of taste who was the more romantic. But in [b:Wonderland Creek|10329441|Wonderland Creek|Lynn Austin|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pkUPQBg1L._SL75_.jpg|15231932] she totally builds a romance with one guy and it's sweet and it's fun but then it's over and suddenly she's happily ever after with someone else, who you knew she was going to end up with but who there wasn't any romantic foundation to their friendship. Which is fine, until you get to the last page where suddenly their friendship has leapt into happily ever after together.