The Biscuit Witch. Deborah Smith

The Biscuit Witch
Deborah Smith
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Date: 2013
Format: Kindle
Pages: 130
Genre: Contemporary
Source: Own book

Welcome back to the Crossroads Cove where new loves, old feuds, and poignant mysteries will challenge siblings Tal, Gabby, and Gus MacBride to fight for the home they lost and to discover just how important their family once was, and still is, to the proud people of the Appalachian highlands.

Tallulah MacBride hasn’t been back to North Carolina since their parents’ tragic deaths, twenty years ago. But now, Tal heads to cousin Delta Whittlespoon’s famous Crossroads Café in the mountains above Asheville, hoping to find a safe hiding place for her young daughter, Eve.What she finds is Cousin Delta gone, the café in a biscuit crisis, and a Scotsman, who refuses to believe she’s passing through instead of “running from.” He believes she needs a knight in shining flannel.

When a pair of sinister private eyes show up, Tal’s troubles are just beginning.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Biscuit Witch.  I read The Crossroad Cafe in 2011 and really liked it. In fact I must do a reread some time.  I was a little nervous that I wouldn't remember that story, however it didn't really matter as this book and the two that follow can easily be read apart from The Crossroad Cafe.  However if you haven't read that one, please do - fabulous story.

I really liked Tal and her daughter Eve.  They are on the run from Eve's father who has the intent to claim his paternity for all the wrong reasons.  They detour into Tal's cousin's home town.  Delta is not there, however there is a community of people ready to provide support for them.  As they come into the town Tal and Eve meet a very persistent black bear - Tagger.  He has a very sweet tooth.

Doug, the local vet, helps out with the Tagger situation, as does a few women from a farm that is also a women's refuge.  Doug comes with an amazing array of animals.  He has  a goat that sleeps on the bed and thinks crayons are a special treat.  He also has piglets, cats and dogs.  Eve quickly finds herself at home with all these animals and is soon wanting to stay.

Tal has a special talent for baking biscuits, but also she has a way of picking up scent off people that tells her so much about them.  Doug and Tal soon hit it off well with each other and romance is in the air.  Normally I don't like romances to be instant, however this one is well written, whimsical and humorous with just that slight touch of magic.  Loved it. It  won't be long before I will be picking up The Pickle Queen, which is the next novella in a set of three.

A Gentle Rain

A Gentle Rain
Deborah Smith.
Published 2007.
Kindle Edition

Goodreads Summary.
A Connecticut heiress learns she's adopted. Her birth parents are mentally handicapped ranch workers in northern Florida. She gets a job at the ranch under a false name in order to learn more about her parents. To her surprise she falls in love with them, the ranch, and the ranch's handsome owner, a part-Seminole Indian "cracker cowboy" who cares for handicapped ranch hands including his own brother.

This book is a contemporary romance and might also fall into the  women's fiction category.  It is set in Florida - the back blocks Florida rather than the resort Florida.  I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the local territory.  

The plot all works out very nicely, perhaps too cleanly and sweetly, however I am not adverse to that, knowing that in real life it just doesn't go that way!  It engaged me, I liked the story line and felt drawn into the lives of the characters and animals.  I cheered every time  Ben's 'family' showed up and stood up to the prejudices of the rich and  arrogant.


It is the characters - people and animals that make this book enjoyable.  I loved the way they interacted with each other and the care that Ben, the hero of the story, has for the array of people he has gathered around him.  The theme of respect and love for those who some in the world would judge as 'retards' makes this book.  The camaraderie between these people, the way they worked together was heart warming.  I think in a way this book invites the reader to examine their own attitudes to those people who in life for one reason or another  are handicapped in some way.  Kara, the heroine, is also wonderful in the way she supports Ben's ranch workers and in the way she responds to her birth parents. Both Ben and Kara look beyond the handicaps to the real people.  Kindness is at the heart of this book.  I came away from it feeling challenged to appreciate each person I meet in my life, and satisfied from a book that I liked.

Personal Challenge 2013.

TBR Challenge 2013