Title: Small Blessings- Author: Martha Woodroof
- Genre: Contemporary Fiction
- Published: August 2014 – St. Martin’s Press
- Source: Publisher
Synopsis: From debut novelist Martha Woodroof comes an inspiring tale of a small-town college professor, a remarkable new woman at the bookshop, and the ten-year old son he never knew he had.
Tom Putnam has resigned himself to a quiet and half-fulfilled life. An English professor in a sleepy college town, he spends his days browsing the Shakespeare shelves at the campus bookstore, managing the oddball faculty in his department and caring, alongside his formidable mother-in-law, for his wife Marjory, a fragile shut-in with unrelenting neuroses, a condition exacerbated by her discovery of Tom’s brief and misguided affair with a visiting poetess a decade earlier.
Then, one evening at the bookstore, Tom and Marjory meet Rose Callahan, the shop’s charming new hire, and Marjory invites Rose to their home for dinner, out of the blue, her first social interaction since her breakdown. Tom wonders if it’s a sign that change is on the horizon, a feeling confirmed upon his return home, where he opens a letter from his former paramour, informing him he’d fathered a son who is heading Tom’s way on a train. His mind races at the possibility of having a family after so many years of loneliness. And it becomes clear change is coming whether Tom’s ready or not.
A heartwarming story with a charmingly imperfect cast of characters to cheer for, Small Blessings‘s wonderfully optimistic heart that reminds us that sometimes, when it feels like life has veered irrevocably off track, the track shifts in ways we never can have imagined. (publisher)
My take: Small Blessings is filled with quirky characters who seem kind of like some people I know in my life. On the surface you’d think they don’t have a problem in the world. But when you get a glimpse of what’s actually going on in their lives you find they’re like many people who, for various reasons, are just trying to get by one day at a time.
My favorite character was Agnes, Tom’s mother-in-law. She was vibrant and unafraid – at least that’s how she appeared to most people. She reminded me of a character Kathy Bates might play in a movie version – strong yet sensitive in a no nonsense way. She had every right to be bitter because of how life had played out for her but she kept moving forward.
I loved the small twists Martha Woodroof slipped in when I least expected them. The plot would just turn on a dime! That kept me flipping the pages because I had to know what happened next. I was never disappointed. Also, I love it when I laugh out loud while reading – that happened more than a few times while reading Small Blessings.
So, read the synopsis above to get an idea of what the book is about and then grab a copy and read it. I bet you’ll like it! This is one I’ll recommend to my friends.
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If you enjoy listening to audiobooks check out this sample of Small Blessings:
Bookfan 