Synopses & Reviews
A funny, entertaining novel of love and family for our times: a single woman who fears she's lost her chance at a family of her own, begins to accumulate an ad hoc one around her.
In the tradition of Elinor Lipman or Marisa de los Santos (Love Walked In), Flowers delivers a smart, witty, appealing story of love, family, and community that breaks the mold of the conventional love story-and will have readers cheering.
Everyone around Prudence Whistler, thirty-six, seems to be settling down. Her once single girlfriends have married and had babies. Her gay best friend is discussing marriage with his partner. Even her irresponsible younger sister, Patsy, is the single mother of a two-year-old. But when Pru panics at losing her mediocre boyfriend of two years-and begins to see the door to her traditional family life closing-she accidentally finds something even better: a new definition of family and happiness. First, it's the crazy cat who moves into her apartment. Then come Pru's headstrong sister and two-year-old niece. Then the niece's dog, the sister's ex-boyfriend, and, ultimately, Patsy and Pru's widowed mother. With the strength of her modern new household, Pru musters the confidence to open the dress shop she's always wanted in town-and discovers an extended family of sorts in the community of shop owners and devoted customers. It's only then that she ends up with the man of her dreams. Endearing, romantic, and satisfying, Nice to Come Home To is a charming, crowd-pleasing debut.
Review
"Rebecca Flowers is a genius of the small and lucent, the details that make a character live and breathe: revelatory moments, quirky and dead-on metaphors, searingly funny observations. You will know Pru Whistler the way you know real people and you'll miss her the second you finish the book." Marisa De Los Santos, author of Love Walked In
Review
"A lovely, funny story about the saving graces of surrogate families and unexpected love. The narrator, Pru, has such a self-effacing, irreverent sense of humor that I couldn't help but root for her all the way." Lolly Winston, New York Times bestselling author of Good Grief and Happiness Sold Separately
Review
"So fresh and funny and warm, it echoed in my head long after I had closed the book....Beautifully written, with wit and heart to spare....She's Jane Austen gone mod, and I can't recommend this hopeful and endearing tale strongly enough." Joshilyn Jackson, author of Gods in Alabama
Review
"Flowers...treats all her characters with care. She likes them, and so do we. It's a gentle book, a nice book to come home to. Sometimes that's exactly what we need." Cleveland Plain Dealer
Review
"Pru's witty, funny observations and her attempts to pick up the pieces of her life and journey down a road she never expected to be on will have readers cheering her on in Flowers engaging, heartfelt, wise, and deftly written novel." Booklist
Review
"Familiar terrain in women's fiction is appealingly approached with a nuanced, evenhanded touch and genuine humor." Library Journal
Synopsis
A funny, entertaining novel of love and family for our times: a single woman who fears she's lost her chance at a family of her own, begins to accumulate an ad hoc one around her.
In the tradition of Elinor Lipman or Marisa de los Santos (Love Walked In), Flowers delivers a smart, witty, appealing story of love, family, and community that breaks the mold of the conventional love story-and will have readers cheering.
Everyone around Prudence Whistler, thirty-six, seems to be settling down. Her once single girlfriends have married and had babies. Her gay best friend is discussing marriage with his partner. Even her irresponsible younger sister, Patsy, is the single mother of a two-year-old. But when Pru panics at losing her mediocre boyfriend of two years-and begins to see the door to her traditional family life closing she accidentally finds something even better: a new definition of family and happiness. First, it's the crazy cat who moves into her apartment. Then come Pru's headstrong sister and two-year-old niece. Then the niece's dog, the sister's ex-boyfriend, and, ultimately, Patsy and Pru's widowed mother. With the strength of her modern new household, Pru musters the confidence to open the dress shop she's always wanted in town and discovers an extended family of sorts in the community of shop owners and devoted customers. It's only then that she ends up with the man of her dreams.
Endearing, romantic, and satisfying, Nice to Come Home To is a charming, crowd-pleasing debut.
Synopsis
In a funny, entertaining novel of love and family, a single woman who fears she's lost her chance at a family of her own, begins to accumulate an ad hoc one around her.
About the Author
Rebecca Flowers is an independent radio producer and commentator whose work has appeared on NPR's All Things Considered and Day to Day. A recipient of the Donald Barthelme Prize for short fiction,"she lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and their two children." This is her first novel.