Leelee Satterfield's life in Memphis, Tennessee, is perfect!
She can't understand her husband's sudden restlessness and
his desire to uproot their family to Vermont of all places.
Leelee always bows to her husband's wishes and has never
defied him. Against her better judgment and her friends'
belief that she has lost her mind, Leelee packs her bags and
heads to Vermont where her husband has bought a dilapidated
bed-and-breakfast to restore, sinking all their money into it.
The culture shock upon arriving nearly has Leelee turning
around and heading home. The monstrous flies and mosquitoes
resembled vampires in a feeding frenzy, leaving Leelee and
the kids soaked in bug repellant. The cold and heavy snows
are unbearable in the leaky inn that has little to no
insulation. When her husband up and leaves in the middle of
the night for another woman, Leelee is stuck. She has no
money but a huge mortgage each month and employees to pay.
Finding her backbone, Leelee discovers her inner strengths
as she struggles to keep her life from dissolving into
complete disaster.
Funny, engaging, loads of Southern attitude and humor are
just a few words that come to mind after reading Ms.
Patton's debut novel. She nails the characters from
eccentric Vermonters to a misplaced Southern Belle. The
portrayal of Leelee's growth from being her husband's
ornament to finding and developing into an independent woman
who discovers happiness with loads of help from her
girlfriends gives this read a thumbs-up.
This review is from the hardcover edition.
Leelee Satterfield seemed to have it all: a gorgeous
husband, two adorable daughters, and roots in the sunny city
of Memphis, Tennessee. So when her husband gets the idea to
uproot the family to run a quaint Vermont inn, Leelee is
devastated and her three best friends are outraged. But
she's loved Baker Satterfield since the tenth grade, how can
she not indulge his dream? Plus, the glossy photos of bright
autumn trees and smiling children in ski suits push her over
the edges after all, how much trouble can it really be?But
Leelee discovers pretty fast that therer's a truckload of
things nobody tells you about Vermont until you live there:
such as mud season, vampire flies, and the danger of ice
sheets careening off roofs.
Not to mention when her beloved Yorkie decides to pick New
Year's Eve to go to doggie heaven-she encounters one more
New England oddity: frozen ground means you can't bury your
dead in the winter. And that Yankee idiosyncrasy just won't do.
The inn they've bought also has its host of problems: an
odor that no amount of potpourri can erase, tacky décor, and
a staff of peculiar Vermonters whose personalities are as
unique as the hippopotamus collection gracing the fireplace
mantle. The whole operation is managed by Helga, a stern
German woman who takes special delight in bullying Leelee
for her southern gentility. Needless to say, it doesn't take
long for Leelee to start wondering when to drag out the
moving boxes again.
But when an unexpected hardship takes Leelee by surprise,
she finds herself left alone with an inn to run, a mortgage
to pay, and two daughters to raise. But this Southern belle
won't be run out of town so easily. Drawing on the Southern
grit and inner strength she didn't know she had, Leelee
decides to turn around the Inn, her attitude and her life.
In doing so, she makes friends with her neighbors, finds a
little romance, and realizes there's a lot more in common
with Vermont than she first thought.In this moving and
comedic debut, Lisa Patton paints a hilarious portrait of
life in Vermont as seen through the eyes of a southern belle
readers won't soon forget. A charming fish-out-of-water tale
of one woman who learns to stand up for herself-in sandals
and snow boots-against the odds.
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