Stealing Home
by Sherryl Woods
Published by MIRA
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Reviewed by Natalie York
Stealing Home by Sherryl Woods is one of the best "chick lit" books I have read in a while. Maybe I identified with it because the main character's husband left her in a cliched manner. Maybe I identified with a woman struggling to get on her feet after she had been betrayed and trying to keep her kids on their feet as well. Whatever the case may be I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Stealing Home is set in the fictional small town of Serenity, North Carolina. Serenity needs a little boost. Their downtown is slumping. Big box stores have moved in and mom and pop stores have moved out.
Maddie needs a boost too. Her husband of 20 years has left her for his nurse. She thinks she has no marketable skills. She has been a stay-at-home mom for the 16 odd years and has been busy raising their three kids. Stealing Home also has eccentric characters, as all Southern books should. It has a cast of strong female friends who rally around Maddie and her kids. Then enter the love interest--a much younger man and her son's high school baseball coach. The book can only get better from there.
For the faint of heart there is some minor language, but it is not gratuitous. It was used in context mainly when the 16-year-old son is in conflict with his father. There are also some steamy scenes, but I give this a PG rating for alluding to the scenes and not really describing them, which is much better in my mind. It leaves much more to the imagination.
All in all, I loved Stealing Home. I read it in one day when my daughter was home with the stomach flu. I even stayed up late to finish it because I had to know how it would end. This is the first book in a trilogy, and I already feel committed to these characters. I can't wait to read the next 2 books, especially if they are as good as the first.
Armchair Interviews says: A chick lit with a message many women can relate to.