The Crossroads Cafe

This was a freebie via kindle, and after sitting in my to be read pile for quite some time I decided to give it a shot. Now, I do not have a kindle but I do have an iphone 4 with a kindle app, which means that while reading a downloaded book isn't impossible or unpleasant, it is not my favorite way to go about consuming words of another. So, it took me a while to read this as I usually only read on my phone when I have a few minutes in between showings, or when I'm waiting for my daughter to get out of school.

This book is written in 2 first persons - Thomas and Catherine. Tom is a architect who lost is wife and son on 9/11 and has since become an alcoholic hillbilly residing in the mountains of NC. Catherine is a famous movie star known pretty much only for her beauty. Catherine has a car accident where she actually catches on fire in amidst those flames she loses her career, her beauty, her husband, and her sanity. Catherine retreats to her grandmothers cottage in the mountains of NC upon the insistance of her cousin Delta (who runs the Crossroad Cafe).

I loved the wholesomness of this book. Wholesome so often comes off as boring and slow, and while there were some parts that were slow moving, the overall book was not. There were no quick answers, magical cures, and love conquers all type of situation. It was real life, real pain, real progress and setbacks. At the end of the book you know everyones going to be okay though you also know that youre not leaving them in some magical fairyland place. I like realism every now and then and this gave me that along with a HEA - not always an easy thing to accomplish but Debroah Smith did just that.

WARNING: be prepared to crave biscuits! Biscuits are the over all theme of this book. Yes, biscuits. Thankfully Ms Smith includes biscuit recipes at the end of this book to help with your cravings. I have not tried to make them yet as Im quite sure they would have about 40 WW points in one and bathing suit season is right around the corner, but one day I will. 

From Booklist Review: Cathy is on top of the world--beautiful, rich, a top movie star about to launch a new career as a cosmetics queen--when an unscrupulous photographer in search of a story causes her car to crash and burn, destroying her perfect body as well as her career and sending her scurrying for a place to hide her scars. Thomas, on the other hand, is still mourning the deaths of his wife and young son in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and is slowly drinking himself to death while sleeping in the bed of his truck in an isolated hamlet in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains. Together, however, they find they are stronger and better people, and they begin to take an active interest in the mountain community that has taken them both into their hearts, and into their kitchens. Once again, Smith has created an unforgettably poignant story in the best tradition of contemporary southern romantic women's fiction.