Wonderland Creek

Austins inspirational novel showcases her ability to make history

Alice is a much-indulged 22-year-old librarian and minister?s daughter, always more absorbed in books than in the world around her. Suddenly losing both beau and job, she opts to personally deliver the books she?s collected for a small town in Kentucky. The place isn?t at all what she expected, and soon Alice is living large and learning a great deal about herself and her faith. Set in 1936, six-time Christy Award winner Austin?s charmingly candid, wryly self-deprecating, first-person inspirational novel showcases her ability to make history?especially the New Deal workforce projects, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the WPA?more than drily factual. Austin succeeds in combining suspense, romance, and an insider?s perspective on one isolated, close-knit Appalachian community and the packhorse librarians who served it so faithfully. Readers who enjoyed her WWII novel, While We?re Far Apart (2010), will find this one much lighter in tone, though in its coming-of-age narrative, Austin explores many of the same themes, including family, the challenge of living a godly life in an ungodly world, and service to others.

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