Publisher: Regal House Publishing
Published: January 4, 2022
Source: ARC Paperback via Over the River PR
Summary:
In search of a new life, Reuben and Ardith Rosenfeld and their two children move from Chicago to the small town of Welton, Colorado, looking for all the hope that the burgeoning West has to offer—its abundance of jobs, space, sunshine, prosperity, and the promise of reinvention. Reuben, a former copyeditor at the Chicago Tribune, purchases the local town paper, the Welton Sentinel. Ardith stays home and copes with the task of fixing up an older house, which suffers such disrepair that on Halloween it’s mistaken for part of a haunted house tour. Teenaged Harry continues his life as a troubled loner, skipping school and losing his tooth in a mysterious encounter. Meanwhile, Reuben, unaware that Ardith is having an affair, worries about his wife’s growing unhappiness and distance from the family. One night, after a cookout at some friends’ dairy farm, a fatal hit-and-run occurs that shocks the community, exposes a secret, and begins to rip apart the Rosenfeld family. The Tenderest of Strings is a riveting, full-hearted story of what it takes to survive as a family in a small Western town that beckons from afar but will put its newcomers to the test of their lives.
My thoughts:
There is nothing I love more than family dramas…so of course when I was pitched this book I could not say yes fast enough. Not only was I intrigued by the plot, but I also love when I find new-to-me authors.
This book kept me engaged from the start. The family is in crisis and just cannot seem to find a way to help themselves out of their own way. Add in a mystery of who is behind the hit-and-run and there seem to be a lot of moving parts, yet it is ultimately all connected. The small-town feel really comes across, and as someone who has always lived in a small town, I really appreciated that.
I really came to love these characters, as flawed and complex as they were. While I didn’t always agree with their decisions, I found that I became quite attached to them and really wanted them to get out of their predicaments to find a better path than the one they were on.
This book is not very long but sure does pack a punch. It is another one that I think would make a good bookclub pick for all that is tackled within it, many different issues, some of which are so timely.
