The Saints and Sinners of Okay County

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic, engaging picture of small town life!
Review: Aletta Honor is a genuine psychic who has avoided her gift almost her entire life. Why she avoids her gift is a mystery that is unravelled throughout the story of her present day life as the mother of three with another on the way. Aletta is like many women in America, and in many other countries, in that she latches onto an attractive, charming man when she is very young and holds on for dear life no matter what the cost. Aletta makes the mistake of badgering her charming good for nothing boyfriend Jimmy into marrying her and then proceeds to have four children one right after the other. Aletta is a stay at home mom and she never stops to think that she and Jimmy cannot afford the childen and even though he is a good father - Jimmy never seems to want his children or show that much interest in them. Once she has Jimmy trapped, Aletta is alarmed to find him staying out after work later and later and coming home drunk. His drinking soon escalates to all out abuse and neglect of his family which is not suprising considering that he never, like many men, wanted the burden or responsibility of marriage and children. Aletta is forced to rely in her own instincts and finally grows up and matures and finds a way to use her psychic gifts to support herself and her children.

Throughtout the dissolution of her marriage Aletta revisits her childhood, her discovery of her psychic powers and the events that lead up to the death of her father and uncle and her estrangement from her mother.

This is a fascinating story of small town life, with some extraordinary characters thrown in for good measure. I enjoyed reading this book and found myself wishing it didn't have to end.

Rating:
Summary: Warmhearted, Uplifting, and Different
Review: Aletta Honor is struggling to keep her family afloat with no money, three children, another one close on the way, and abandoned by her no-good, womanizing, alcoholic husband. Things could hardly be worse. A chance encounter convinces her to make use of the psychic gift she has had since childhood, but suppressed. Now she puts up a sign for psychic readings in her front yard, and the fun really begins.

Jimmy her husband comes in and out of her life, drinking and blowing up unpredictably. Wonderful and terrible memories surface as the book moves easily between the present and Aletta's troubled childhood. The locals don't necessarily cotton to having a psychic reader in their small Bible-belt town. Aletta is painfully estranged from her embittered mother. Bible-thumping church-folk demonstrate on her front lawn. What next?

Will Aletta get back together with Jimmy? Will she learn to make it on her own? Will she make peace with her own childhood? And, is this psychic gift for real? You will just have to read the book to find out. And, you should!

Author Dayna Dunbar has a wonderful gift for bringing characters to life and making their inner worlds believable. She develops her story so skillfully, so empathetically, that you will even have a little sympathy for the villains. The book is extremely well-written, and it is also warm-hearted and uplifting. Once you pick it up, it's hard to put down. I recommend this one highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Rating:
Summary: beautiful southern fiction at its best!
Review: Aletta is pregnant with three kids and a husband who ran off a few weeks before the novel begins. She puts a sign in her yard advertising psychic readings in order to make ends meet.

Jimmy comes around again. Will Aletta take him in or make him go? The storytelling is superb in this book and beckons you closer to the small town life of Okay County.

Don't miss out on this one! If you like books by Adriana Trigiani, then you're sure to love this book.

Rating:
Summary: I loved both the saints AND the sinners!
Review: Dayna Dunbar has written a touching, funny novel about being true to yourself and being strong enough to move on from a toxic relationship. And she does this without demonizing our "villain," Jimmy. Yes, he's a womanizing alcoholic, but the reader can actually sympathize with this lost soul. Aletta's psychic powers and the mystery of her past kept the plot moving, but I mostly kept reading to make sure that this sweet, very human family would be ok. Or should I say OKAY?

Rating:
Summary: engaging historical women?s fiction
Review: In 1976 Okay, Oklahoma during the annual Okay Czech Festival, Aletta Honor watches the parade when a woman comes up to her and says she glows. Aletta tells the stranger to avoid the highway. The next day the visitor returns to thank Aletta who saved her life

Aletta has personal problems to contend with since her husband Jimmy left her with no money, three kids, and pregnant. She always had the gift, but rarely used it. However, desperately in need of money she decides to start up a business as a Psychic Reader. As her reputation grows, townsfolk especially her spouse are not sure what to make of Aletta, whose accuracy is incredible. That does not disturb her. However, by returning to her gift, the memories of what happened to her family two decades ago also flood her mind, but with a horror that she prefers to ignore. Now Aletta is regaining her life one mental step at a time.

THE SAINTS AND SINNERS OF OKAY COUNTY is an engaging historical women's fiction (1976 feels so ancient due to the PC and other technological advances) tale that focuses predominantly on a person taking control of their life. The story line is at its best when it remains in the present (1976 that is); flashbacks to Aletta's childhood adds depth as to why she prefers not to use her gift, but also disrupts the problems she must face as an adult with children whose oldest is only fourteen. Dayna Dunbar writes a solid tale that readers will appreciate.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Aletta is just okay with me.
Review: So this woman is stuck in hard times indeed: husband left her, bills piling up, pregnant, trying to take care of four other kids, etc. She has always played life in her small town by the rules, never upsetting anybody or standing out. Now she has to find a way to earn money fast, and her family can?t live on the pity of the community. Reluctantly, Aletta Honor plays the only card she has left and opens for business as a psychic reader. But wouldn?t you know it, the whole town seems to have something to say about this development and pretty soon the right-wing religious folk are picketing. Despite persecution from her husband, her church and even her mother, Aletta is determined to help everybody who comes to her door in need because she truly believes that her gift is from God. What a likeable heroine.

Author Danya Dunbar writes the lives of Aletta, her family and friends with heart and sympathy; even despicable, cheating husband Jimmy and the stereotypically intolerant and self-righteous religious folk that protest Aletta?s business are handled with some softer moments. Though insightful flashbacks and Aletta?s psychic visions we learn many secrets of Okay County?s residents that explain how they came to be the people they are today, good but full of hurts. The overriding theme appears to be that everybody is just looking for a little love however they can. (get out those sap buckets!). I do wish Dunbar hadn?t written Aletta as so much of a dashboard saint herself, however; her only flaw appears to be loving people too much. Syrup, anyone?

Personally, I found the book?s title to be a little too prophetic of its lukewarm plotting. I have no real objection to it Read The Saints and Sinners of Okay county if you want a nice, quick read for the summer and a smidgen of feel-good New Age style spirituality. I?m just not a sentimentalist myself, so this type of novel reads as over-the-top to me. But hey, different strokes and all that, so you might enjoy it.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle


Rating:
Summary: THE BEST SOUTHERN HOME-COOKED BOOK EVER!!!!
Review: This was a thought provoking piece of literature that amazingly captured the feeling of the era. It was very seventies-esque, but with a feeling that the writer had been there before and now tells her tale.
Aletta's struggle kept the book fast paced. The flashbacks to her past made the reader see the sentiment of her ability. I also enjoyed the realistic situations involving Aletta's children at the lake, on the Fourth of July, and just trying to deal with what was going on with their parents.
Great book, all-to-fast read, and beautiful form of writing. Wonderful author!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Great storytelling, perfect pitch
Review: This wonderful first novel by a gifted writer not only takes this reader back to the 1970s, but alsoto the nuances of landscape and life in small town Oklahoma, or probably anywhere in the US south and miswest. A subtly femiist text,its a great read for women and men.

Rating:
Summary: a good womanly read
Review: With the whole state of Oklahoma wildly celebrating America's bicentennial in a never-endingly hot summer, Aletta waddles around in her rented house right on Main Street where the Fourth of July parade is passing her by, her three children are who-know-where, her husband is off either drinking himself silly or with another woman, & she's broke.

During a parade, while selling lemonade, an out-of-town woman offers her sympathy for her condition & touches her hand. Aletta clearly sees the woman in a traffic accident, & gives her a warning. When the woman returns the next day to thank her, Aletta finally figures out how to save her own life

Rebeccasreads recommends THE SAINTS AND SINNERS OF OKAY COUNTY as both hilarious & poignant, a brash & courageous womanly tale, steeped in the earthy wisdom of America's rural heartland.