Almost Home by Valerie Fraser Luesse

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Almost Home: A Novel

A lovely, heartwarming story. Set in Alabama during World War II, Little Mama's house becomes a boarding house where a group of strangers meets and live and become best of friends. Was this house really built by a river pirate? And what became of them? And is there a treasure to be found? Questions you will have to read the book to find out what the answers are.

Dolly and Si are genuine, down-to-earth people that seem to exemplify the phrase, "Southern Hospitality." They open their homes to the down and out young couple from Illinois, the older professor couple from Chicago, an old war vet and a young war vet who is fighting demons still.

It's a story of friendship and love and loss. Yes, there's a bit of romance, of course, but to me, the story is so much bigger than that. It's about a young couple learning to find each other again, it's about an older couple fully settling on what's really important, it's about generosity. It's so hard for me to describe a book that I really liked. It gave me all the good feels, it made me want to be a more generous person, it made me want to be more hospitable, it made me want to be a better friend.

I also liked the way Valerie brought out the struggles of the injured veteran. Sometimes, fiction books gloss over the internal struggles that accompany someone who has seen war, but I feel like Valerie confronts it. Now I haven't been in a war zone, so I don't know if her descriptions are accurate, but she did do some research on it, so I feel she made a very good attempt to portray the emotions that can accompany somebody coming back from war.

Basically, if you want a story that has a feel-good ending, a bit of humor, but also some takeaways for your own life in it, then try this book. I would also recommend Missing Isaac as another good book to read, maybe for a different reason, but Valerie does an excellent job with that book as well.

I received this book from Revell and was not required to write a positive review. I will be on the lookout for future books by Valerie, they are worth reading.

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