Sweet Dreams at the Goodnight Motel

Rating:
Summary: Another Great Chapter in the Story of Valentine, OK
Review: Curtiss Ann Matlock does not disappoint in her latest installment on our friends in the little town of Valentine, Oklahoma. The story includes the usual cast of interesting characters like Vella, Winston, Maralee, Tate, Corrine, etc. and adds a few new ones like Claire Wilder, who finds a way to move beyond her failed marriage as she learns to trust her heart, and Sherrilyn Earles a naive young women who needs someone like Claire to step in and offer unconditional friendship, and to show her that she can make her own way in this world. I can't wait for the next book!

Rating:
Summary: warm tale
Review: In Shreveport, Legal Secretary Claire Wilder receives an epiphany when she reads a message on a bathroom door of a truck stop about "... looking for life". Claire concludes she wasted the last two years of her life working for a crappy boss while waiting for Andrew, her former spouse of almost two decades, to realize he made a mistake leaving her for a younger woman. She decides to leave town to find her estranged father who she has not seen since he walked out on her and her mother when Claire was a little girl. Just before leaving Andrew tells her he wants to come back to Claire, but she says she will consider this when she comes back from Oklahoma.

After quitting her job, she travels to Valentine, Oklahoma, the last place where she knew her dad lived. In Valentine, few people remember her dad and those that do recall very little about him. However, Claire is adopted by nonagenarian Winston Valentine, becomes close friends with septuagenarian drugstore owner Vella Blaine, and "adopts" abandoned pregnant teen Sherrilyn Earles even as Deputy Sheriff Travis Ford keeps a close eye on her. Claire is happy with her new relationships until Andrew arrives expecting she will take him back.

The latest visit to Valentine is a warm tale starring a coming of age (though Claire is middle age) woman seeking a modicum of happiness in a life that she feels has past her by with little contentment. The support cast in Louisiana and Oklahoma enable the reader to see the transformation of Claire through their eyes. The story line is character driven as Claire seeks her roots and finds a life.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Sweet Dreams
Review: Proving that inspiration can strike anywhere, anytime, Claire finds hers scrawled across a bathroom wall. Urged to find a life, she takes off to find her long absent father. Shreveport no longer feels like home since her husband dumped her. However, her destination, Valentine, gives her what she was missing- surrogate relatives from parents to a pregnant teen who needs mothering herself, and an interesting man who is interested in her. Just when life has a more rosy tinge, her cheating ex realizes that she was worth holding onto and how foolish he was to let her get away, making her wonder if the way back is the way forward.


Eccentrics give the novel color, much like Steel Magnolias or other Southern chick lit might have. The emails between Claire's surrogate mother and her love interest throw the narrative off a bit, however. It does, to on the positive side, have a good heart to power the story.