A Gift of Family

This is a pleasant tale of a veteran coming home to find his place after years of recon have left his buddies dead and his body scarred. He doesn't know who he is anymore, but one thing he can do is help his aunt with her renovations, so he heads to Harland to help her out.

The small town feel really seemed authentic in this story. I liked reading about everyone coming into the diner, about Gus, and about the family and even the family pets, and about Lisa's ultra-protective brothers.

The one thing that bugged me was a certain oak tree being planted... Tagged “three years” (in what region do they tag plants by age? In the south it's by pot size.), but “oh, how smart it isn't a sapling” and “a trunk sturdy enough to hold up to strong winds.”— maybe a little more research is in order. Oaks fresh from the acorn grow a whopping two to four leaves in their first season. In the second they double that. By the third year they may put out their first branch. Thereafter they grow six to twelve inches per year, depending on variety and water availability, until maturity, when they may grow slightly faster. (My 60 year old red oaks grow about 18 inches per year.) So the tree described is probably 15-20 years old if it is sturdy of trunk and tall enough to anticipate shade in the next few years.

Sorry for the compulsive botany lesson. ;)