Famous in a Small Town
Ratings1
Average rating5
15
Ratings1
Average rating5
A magical tale of destiny and small-town charm. The summer read you’ve been waiting for!
"Full of summertime delight…and sweet, nostalgic charm, Famous in a Small Town is a beautiful reminder to…fully embrace the magic that lives inside you." —Heather Webber, USA TODAY bestselling author of Midnight at the Blackbird Café
For most of her eighty years, Mary Jackson has endured the steady invasion of tourists, influencers and real estate developers who have discovered the lakeside charm of Good Hart, Michigan, waiting patiently for the arrival of a stranger she’s believed since childhood would one day carry on her legacy—the Very Cherry General Store. Like generations of Jackson women before her, Cherry Mary, as she’s known locally, runs the community hub—part post office, bakery and sandwich shop—and had almost given up hope that the mysterious prediction she’d been told as a girl would come true and the store would have to pass to…a man.
Becky Thatcher came to Good Hart with her ride-or-die BFF to forget that she’s just turned forty with nothing to show for it. Ending up at the general store with Mary is admittedly not the beach vacation she expected, but the more the feisty octogenarian talks about destiny, the stronger Becky’s memories of her own childhood holidays become, and the strange visions over the lake she was never sure were real. As she works under Mary’s wing for the summer and finds she fits into this quirky community of locals, she starts to believe that destiny could be real, and that it might have something very special in mind for Becky…
Bursting with memorable characters and small-town lore, the enchanting new novel from the bestselling author of The Clover Girls is a magical story about the family you’re born with, and the one you choose.
Reviews with the most likes.
All Michigan Tourism Boards Should Hire "Ms. Shipman". Seriously, this book in particular is basically one giant love letter to rural Michigan, in prose form for around 350 pages. The history - for better and worse. The current - for better and worse. The land. The culture. The lakes you can never get far from.
And the cherries. Always the cherries.
Oh yes, there are humans here too. And some mysticism/ "magical realism". And their story is both linked and compelling, as they always are in a Viola Shipman book.
But really, you're reading this book to feel like you're travelling to Michigan - and that is not a bad thing at all. It really is described so beautifully that even this hardened Southerner who has been north of the Mason-Dixon just three times in his lifetime... want to consider going to Michigan at some point. Maybe.
Very much recommended.