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From The New York Times bestselling author comes a poignant, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel about an unlikely path to motherhood, and of two lost souls healing each other
1950 Tennessee, a time and place that straddles the past and present. Ivorie Walker is considered an old maid by the town (though she’s only in her early thirties) and she takes that label with good humor and a grain of salt. Ever since her parents passed away, she has hidden her loneliness behind a fierce independence and a claim of not needing anyone. But her mother’s death hit her harder than anyone suspects and Ivorie wonders if she will be alone forever.
When she realizes that someone has been stealing vegetables from her garden—a feral, dirty-faced boy who disappears into the hills—something about him haunts Ivorie. She can’t imagine what would make him desperate enough to steal and eat from her garden. But what she truly can’t imagine is what the boy faces, each day and night, in the filthy lean-to hut miles up in the hills. Who is he? How did he come to live in the hills? Where did he come from? And, more importantly, can she save him? As Ivorie steps out of her comfort zone to uncover the answers, she unleashes a firestorm in the town—a community that would rather let secrets stay secret.
"The story of a woman's love, sacrifice, and bravery to save a small, wounded boy, Donna VanLiere has faithfully re-created the South of the 1950s, in both the innocence of the time and its evil. It's a beautiful story."—Kathleen Kent, bestselling author of The Heretic's Daughter
"The Good Dream is a great story of people saving each other in the unlikeliest ways. A heartwarming winner of a book." — Jenna Blum, bestselling author of The Stormchasers
“Both heartrending and redemptive, The Good Dream imagines the profound power that love holds to change a life.”—- Katherine Howe, bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
Donna VanLiere has created a marvelous character in Ivorie of Morgan Hill, Tennessee. Hers is a compelling story of a young woman who must choose between her dreams and saving a boy she is told is forever damaged. Her struggle will intrigue you, entertain you, and will make you think important thoughts. That's about as much as we can ask a novel to do. - Homer Hickam, author of Rocket Boys/October Sky and The Keeper's Son.
"Written with all the gumption of its Tennessee characters, The Good Dream is a great story of people saving each other in the unlikeliest ways. A heartwarming winner of a book." — Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us and The Stormchasers
"Donna VanLiere has woven an intoxicating Southern gothic tale of solitary Ivorie Walker, a capable young woman who must confront the terrible secrets that lie below the placid surface of life in the 1950s Tennessee countryside. At times both heartrending and redemptive, The Good Dream imagines the profound power that love holds to change a life, while tracing the reverberations that one woman's courage can send tearing through an entire community."— Katherine Howe, New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
"In The Good Dream, Donna VanLiere has created a heartwarming story of redemption and has shown the world that she's not just for Christmas anymore."—Richard Paul Evans, #1 bestselling author of The Christmas Box, Lost December, and Miles to Go
"The Good Dream snares the reader right from the start. DonnaVanLiere's pitch perfect voice captures all the country charm and mystery of a long-ago time and place with its many acts of kindness and courage, as well as its secrets." - Mary McGarry Morris, New York Times bestselling author of Songs in Ordinary Time
Ivorie
I didn’t set out to be an old maid. When I was in my early twenties there was, according to my mother, “still hope for me.” But when I got into my late twenties the hope all but left Mother’s eyes. “Lord have mercy, Ivorie,” she would say. “What is going to happen to you when your pop and I leave this earth?” I was, in her opinion, doomed to a bed-of-nails existence without a man.
Mother had always been fire and sizzle but there was something used up about her the last two years of her life. Her arthritis grew worse; gnarling her small, freckled hand into the shape of a claw and taking care of Pop wore what was left of her away. One afternoon, she came to me in the garden, where she rested that crippled hand atop her cane and looked at me with those sad, cornflower-blue eyes. “What about Lyle Hovitts?”
I nearly toppled the basket of beans I was picking. “That melon-headed man with the fat stomach and stumpy legs?” I threw my head back and laughed. “Mother! What have I done to you?”
She waved a bony hand in the air and rolled her eyes. “I’m just saying, Ivorie. You’re a pretty girl.”
I wiped the sweat off my face and squatted back down to my work. “Well, I don’t know why every pretty girl in Greene County isn’t lined up outside Lyle Hovitts’ door. What girl wouldn’t want that old, saggy butt crawling into her bed every night?”
“Oh, Lord have mercy, Ivorie! It’s too close to Sunday for such talk.”
I laughed and tossed another handful of beans into the basket. “You started it, Mother. Lyle Hovitts. I’m surprised you didn’t say Garth Landis.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Garth Landis.”
“He’s a tall, lanky goon! He’s got that sloped nose and those gangly arms with the hairy hands at the end of them. Plus—he must be fifty!”
“He’s a fine-looking man.”
My gallbladder shook I laughed so hard. “Well, his beauty must be the kind that’s magnified by liquor!”
“He’s tolerable,” she said. “Not all men are tolerable, but you could tolerate Garth.”
I grabbed my head. “Is that what marriage is, Mother? Tolerating somebody?”
She looked at me like I was a kook. “Well, it has a lot to do with it! If you don’t get sick looking at somebody, you’re halfway there in tolerating them.”
I couldn’t even respond to that. She started to hunch down and I waved my hand in the air at her. “Don’t get down here. I’ll have a world of a time getting you back up. I’ll finish these. You just commence to worrying about which sad, lonely buck I need to hook my horns into.” And when she leaned her bent, tiny frame over her cane and looked out over the garden, I knew she was doing just that!
Mother was my closest friend. We spent our time working in the garden, canning, cooking, and baking together, and we’d talk about Pop until we were both giggling like girls. We loved sitting down at the table and eating a slice of pound cake with a cup of coffee while we listened to Maxine Harrison read the news on the radio station out of Greenville. We’d shake our heads over the obituaries and talk about the poor, old widow who was left behind, or make a high-pitched noise in our throats on hearing about the birth of a new baby. Mother didn’t wear a watch; she didn’t need one—she just knew when it was coffee-and-cake time. It didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing—if we were stooped over in the garden, Mother would say, “Coffee and cake time,” and we would stop our work and sit down to listen to Maxine. I always knew when Mother was thinking she needed a rest with a glass of sweet tea, and she could sense when I needed to pick up a book and hide out on the back porch. I’ve always been too impatient with myself and others, my expectations of them too high, but Mother just loved people, plain and true, warts and all. Her hope was always cell deep and child simple.
My six brothers are all married with children. By the time I was born (when Mother was forty-two—a miracle anywhere), my oldest brother, Henry, was already settled down with two children. Shoot, at my age Mother had had six of her seven children. Whenever I looked at her and Pop I could hear time speeding by me. Tick: There’s a man! Tock: Better grab him! Tick: Time’s running out! Tock: Too late.
Morgan Hill, Tennessee, is just seventy miles north of Knoxville, but it’s as far from the city as it is the ocean, in my opinion. It’s not big enough to be a city or even a town; we’re a community—the Morgan Hill community. We’ve got Walker’s Store, which my brother Henry owns, the Langley School Building, the church, and that’s it (not exactly a hotbed for available suitors), but I can’t imagine living anywhere else. These hills and farmland are home.
Pop served in Africa during the Great War, and while there, he held a piece of ivory in his hand, claiming it to be the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. He brought it home with him and laid it on the chest of drawers in his and Mother’s bedroom. Mother held that piece of ivory the night I was born. I didn’t come easy. “You about ripped me sideways to Christmas,” Mother said. When Mother grasped for the sheets, her friend Nola threw the ivory into her hand to give her something to hold on to. She and Pop named me Sarah Ivorie. I claimed Ivorie as my first name during my second year in school when another girl, a pinched-face, puckered-lip thug was also named Sarah. She was so sour that her cheeks turned red as a plum when she got mad. I told my mother that from there on out I would no longer share the name Sarah with that brutish blob of a girl but would answer only to Ivorie. “Pretty name for a pretty girl,” Mother said. Imagine the heartbreak when years later that pretty name wasn’t attracting a husband.
In the early years, when I was right out of high school, the people in Morgan Hill still held out hope for me: Which young man do you have your eye on? Have you seen the way that Carl Winters makes over you? Before you know it, you’re going to have three or four proposals. But when I hit twenty-four and was still living at home, it threw the whole community into crisis mode. A distress signal spread throughout it: Awkward Walker girl doomed to manlessness. Gasp! I went from resident old maid to queen of the downtrodden parade. There I was, sitting high on my float and just waving and blowing kisses to the sorriest lineup of the lonely and cripple-hearted I’ve ever seen. The phone rang off the hook. Have you met my nephew, Lenny? He’s the man with dropsy over in Midway. Have you ever met my uncle Lew? His wife died two years ago and he’s got a house full of good chil’ren. Have you met Harold over at the Co-op in Morristown? He’s that real nice man that works there with the eye patch. Real funny. Nice head of hair.
For the longest time Ed Popper would visit on Sunday afternoon, bringing three oranges with him. We didn’t get oranges too often in Morgan Hill so Ed would pick them up each week when he drove into Knoxville to visit an ailing aunt. Ed was five years older than me with a head as big as a hippopotamus and a face almost as ugly. His stomach rolled over his belt like a sack of cornmeal and his feet always looked freakishly tiny and too narrow to hold up all that weight. We’d sit out on the front porch—Mother, Pop, me, and Ed Popper—and we’d share those oranges and talk about the weather or who died, who was getting ready to die, or who we thought already died, and as I watched orange juice drip down Ed’s massive face, I wondered why I couldn’t die.
Mother was thrilled with Ed’s attention. He grew—these were her words—some of the prettiest tobacco in Greene County. Well slide a ring on my finger so I can be Mrs. Pretty Tobacco! Ed visited every Sunday for months and sat with his manure-caked shoes pointed to opposite corners of the porch. All I had to do was take one look at those nasty shoes and my stomach would knot up. I have no idea why he came back as long as he did because I never gave him any reason to believe I wasn’t anything other than completely bored. I was as comfortable with him as a frog is in a bottle.
One Sunday, Ed brought a watermelon to us and I took it from him, marching it inside the well house, where I set it on the floor and then closed the door on it. Ed swayed from foot to foot like an overweight pendulum for a while as Mother groped for something to say, her mouth gaping like a carp. Ed resigned himself to leaving, and Mother rose to her feet. She said, “You didn’t offer Ed Popper one slice of his watermelon, and now he’ll never long to come here again.” If I had known that’s what it would take to stop Ed Popper’s longing, I would have thrown his fruit in the well house months earlier.
Two years ago, in 1948, when I was twenty-eight and we buried Pop after eighty-two years of living in Morgan Hill, the community gave up on me. Polly Jarvis married Ed Popper, making her Polly Popper, a ridiculous name for a grown woman, and that marriage ended the community’s hope to marry me off. People started referring to me as that poor old thing. I heard them whispering at church or when I was shopping in Henry’s store. “Ivorie just sits down there and takes care of her mother. That poor, old thing, I guess she’ll never marry.” I laughed out loud at a church picnic when I overheard two women, a cabbage-round–faced one and a skinny, ropy-armed one, mumbling about my plight over a plate of fried chicken. “That poor old thing has never been with a man,” Ropy Arms whispered.
“Well, ain’t that her good fortune!” Cabbage Face said.
Mother heard people talking, too, and this old-maid business worried her something awful. “Mother, I am happy,” I said time and again. “I love my job at the school and I enjoy coming home and working in the garden and spending time with you.” She’d look at me with those aging eyes and treelike wrinkles that branched out from them and try to smile and there we’d stand: me trying to convince her that I was really okay and her not believing a word of it.
Time to time she’d get real quiet and glance up into the hills, the sun landing bright on her face, and say, “Don’t live with regret, Ivorie. It’s an awful thing.”
For the longest time I thought she meant the regret of me not having a man, but one day something struck me on the top part of my brain and I said, “Mother, what regrets do you have?”
Law, she was quiet! A beetle made more noise breathing than she did. She stared up into the hills and finally said, “I have one and it plagues me terrible.”
There was something in her voice that I’d never heard, or rather, something not in it that I wanted to hear. Her eyes and her mind were someplace I couldn’t go. “What is it, Mother?” She didn’t answer. “Mother?” That’s how we lived out what ended up being the last of her days.
I knew she was tired and grieving. I knew her body was frail and knobbed with bone. What I didn’t know was that her heart was weakening and breaking down. I woke up one morning and put the coffee and sausages on like I’d done every morning for years. Like clockwork I would hear the padding of her feet across the wide-planked floors, but that morning the silence stretched from one room to the next and all I heard was the deafening tick, tick, tick of the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. The fire stopped burning and stars fell from the sky. I buried her six months ago, in January, a month before my thirtieth birthday, and on some mornings that time feels long as a mountain’s shadow but short as a day. The void she left blows through the house, and sometimes the emptiness chokes me. Death sure can work you over.
The house is quiet now and settled in sadness. On the most silent of nights, when the dark is cold and still, I swear I can hear her shuffling down the hall toward me with the tap, tap, tap of her cane, but when I turn to look, I know it’s just me wishing she was here. There’s always some maddening noise of emptiness here—the breeze against the windows, the rustle of trees, a creak in the floor or from the roof settling.
Each night I wander the rooms and walk to the table with three legs that sits in the corner of Pop’s bedroom and pull the chain on the lamp with the too-heavy white base. The amber globe colors the room in a dull shade of yellow. This furniture is practical, sturdy, like Pop himself, and while I don’t particularly like it, it’s too sentimental to sell. I reach for the dust rag I keep on the trunk at the end of the bed and polish the knobs on the iron bed that were always too much work to keep shiny. I move to Mother’s room with the pretty eyelet curtains in the window and the cherry chest of drawers with the tall paw-footed legs that held her Bible on top. I haven’t moved it since she died. I walk to the half-made quilt that lies in the rocking chair by the window. What will happen to it now? Who would take the care that Mother did with each square? What about that whining kitchen door she always complained about? What of the tractor tire that Pop said was bent or the dress without arms that lay on the cedar chest at the end of Mother’s bed? Who would finish all this unfinished business and what would be the point?
When I’m busy during the day I don’t mind the thoughts or the quiet, but never does the house seem as silent—so much like granite—as when I clunk around the empty rooms at night, when even the hushing noise the breeze makes sounds like a branch of iron against the windows. These rooms hold too many memories—too much laughter and anger and tears and outrageous moments happened here. Some people’s lives are imprinted into a home like handprints. Seven children left their imprint here: Grady’s robust laugh, James’s disappointment, Lyle’s gift of mercy, Howard’s dry and ironic humor, Caleb’s flash of anger, my spirit for fun, and Henry’s commonsense way of meeting the day. Seven children were born here and two people left the world here. When Pop lay withering, the smell of his illness clung to the curtains and towels, and when I took a breath it felt as if the house was consuming me. The morning that Mother died, the house didn’t feel like death—smells of coffee and sausage saturated the rooms and seeped into the sheets, making her death so jarring to me. All the imprints of life are here, but loneliness is as thick as mud inside these walls.
School let out the second week of May and besides the two weeks at the end of the year and the two weeks prior to the beginning of the year, when I either tie up loose ends or begin my secretarial work in the office and organizing the school library, I get the whole summer off. It’s just me and my garden to harvest, berries to pick, Gertie to milk, and this old house to keep running. These first six months of 1950 have gone by as slow as molasses in January; I can’t imagine what the rest of summer is going to feel like.
The screen door groans as I open it and I sit out on the back porch, looking out over the garden. Sally runs to me, pushing her shaggy, blond head under my hand. She looks up at me with sorrowful, brown eyes. She misses Mother, too. We are a pitiful twosome but surely things will get better. Or worse. I never know.
Copyright © 2012 by Donna VanLiere
Anonymous
Posted July 24, 2012
I just finished reading The Good Dream and it is an amazing book. I finished it in one day because I could not put it down. I absolutely love when a book just really transports you back in time, and you feel like you are actually there at that specific moment in time. This book took me back to 1950, to the life of Ivorie Walker, and the little boy who she finds stealing from her garden. Her friends and her family were just awesome, it was a beautiful story, i just absolutely loved it. Its the kind of story that makes you laugh one moment and cry the next. Very powerful. Oh, and a teeny tiny character, hot dot, was just one of my favorites. So funny! But really, i cant single her out because there were so many more who had bit parts and were equally funny. And sorry, i'm giving things away, but at the end, "its so hot my chikens are laying hard boiled eggs"? It made me laugh AND cry because it was such a poignant moment. I would recommend this book to absolutely everyone, it was just really one of the best i have ever read. Thanks, Donna, hope you are working on your next book! Excellent!
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.SuzyWeibel
Posted July 14, 2012
I was fortunate enough to get an advance copy of this novel from my friend Donna VanLiere and I devoured it within several days. I used to be strictly a fiction reader and yet I find myself drawn more these days to non-fiction, likely due to the proliferation of hopelessness offered in so much fiction today. I want to find some hope (albeit realistic) in a story, and I want to find characters I can develop some empathy for. Too much modern fiction offers neither.
Donna is a friend, so it is a delight to see her and meet others she knows in her fiction. She writes with the same southern flavor I find in her home, her day to day sense of humor, and even on her Facebook page. As I completely appreciate Donna's sense of humor, this makes her slice-of-life fictional style quite satisfying to read.
Donna creates characters at once ornery, compassionate, broken, derisive, helpless, and driven... sounds a lot like my own family members. I appreciate the fact the bad guys are bad - not at all sugar coated. It is as if she has perhaps come face to face with evil during the course of her own life, which of course she has. Some of her villains, too, are merely misguided and wounded souls. Nowhere do we find a protagonist who is flawless. These are all key character development points for me. This is a real story comprised of REAL pain, REAL risk, and REAL redemption.
I don't want to live in a world that is so dark the light cannot penetrate it, because personally I do not believe such a darkness exists. Neither does Donna VanLiere. The light shines in the darkness, and even if the darkness does not comprehend, it is compromised and truly dark no more. Thus we have here a tale of darkness penetrated by the light and restoration of hope, and that is always going to be a good dream.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.gquilter
Posted June 4, 2012
Donna isn't just for Christmas anymore! This book was great, tugs at your heart in places and heartwarming all at the same time. The characters are real and complex. The story flows easily and is always
ineresting. I didn't want to put it down.
I think it can be enjoyed by men, women and mature teens and is great for a book club discussion. Donna captured the 50's of the South, it's laid back life style and it's secrets to keep you wanting more.
I loved it!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 24, 2013
Great book, highly recommend it!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 27, 2013
Wonderful story..great characters..uplifting..could not put it down
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 8, 2012
It is a lovely story about two lonely people finding each other: An "old maid", who didn't really need anyone until her mother passed away and a seven year old boy, who is badly abused. She finds him stealing from her garden, finds out about the abuse and then rescues him. She faces problems- putting her relationship with a man in jeopardy, people scoffing her, and a person who seems to not want her to find out who the boy is. It is heartwarming, heartbreaking, and incredibly beautiful.
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Posted December 2, 2012
Great Book!! Recommend highly!! Great story line and characters. Donna always writes the best stories:)
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 9, 2012
Beautiful yet heartbreaking. Laugh out loud Southern humor yet serious. This story was unlike anything I have read for so long and I would highly recommend it to anyone. I am fifteen and know my friends would fall in love with this book—yet I also know anyone from my fiftysome year old piano teacher to my grandpa would love this incredible story as well. Ivorie Walker's simple yet heartwarming compassion was amazing and the deep love she had for a little boy with a cleft palate who could barely even make a noise was so neat to watch as the story developed and soared! Please consider reading this inspirational story that will leave you smiling—it's more than a feel good book—and you will realize what I mean. The story of a small town that came together for a little boy. I loved it!
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Posted September 14, 2012
I bought this book because of the front cover illustration. Something I never do but because I have a bottle tree in my garden was simply drawn to it.
What a wonderful story followed. The derermination and courage of the main charecters, the flaws that came to light as the story unfolded, the tears, the hurt and sadness but in the end the joy.
Do read this book you will not regret it.
dwgodbyDG
Posted September 11, 2012
Author Donna VanLiere certainly doesn't disappoint her fans with her first full-length novel. This book stirs the emotions,
warms the heart and challenges the mind. She places such characters as Ivorie Walker, an old maid stated by many in the
town because she is in her thirties and not married. Then there is George Coley who wants to marry Ivorie but when she finds
a starving, abused boy raiding her garden that she wants to help, he decides that isn't the life for him. This little boy
has been abused, neglected, scared and unable to speak because of a cleft palette. Ivorie can't turn her back on him, even though
most of the town would quickly say it is too much for a single lady like herself to ever get involved in.
Ivorie's brother Henry and his wife quickly aid Ivorie in her endeavor to help this little boy who after much time she learns
is named Peter. She tells the little boy that his mother must have named him that because according to the Bible Peter means
a rock and he is one strong and determined little boy.
It is amazing what a person can see through the eyes of a young little boy. Because Ivorie isn't willing to give up on this young lad, she is blessed in return by finding a young man who is smart, loving, engaging, desires to learn and responds with great affection.
This book challenges the reader to not just look at people in passing rather to look deeper within ones heart to see who they truly are and more importantly who they can become. It may make the reader ask some pointed questions, such as: the one who is mean spirited, the hard to get along with, the screamer or hurtful person could be someone who has encountered a great deal within their own life and they aren't sure of how to respond to life's challenges? Peter challenges the reader to make sure how we respond to others is how we would like others to respond to us. Ivorie shares the love and compassion of Jesus as she reaches out to Peter to make a difference within his life.
There is suspense, drama, action, romance, and laughter to engage the reader as they turn page by page to find out what will
happen next. The author does a great job of leading the reader through one situation to the next always building and causing
the reader to want more.
This is a definite 5 of 5 book, that most any reader would enjoy and certainly one that leaves the reader feeling involved in the
story.
Anonymous
Posted September 6, 2012
The Good Dream is not only an incredible story, but is full of depth and substance. The characters are colorful and distinct, and though the story takes you on a journey with its ups and downs, you take away from this book many lessons. This book is not predictable; with only a few pages left to read, i was unsure as to how this book would wrap up. I never like to finish a book, especially a novel, because i'm usually disappointed, or feel I could have placed a better bow on the package. The Good Dream, was pleasantly different. My husband had read the book a few weeks prior, and after i finished we enjoyed talking about it, the characters, the story with its twists, and our take-aways which led to a very interesting discussion. Thank you Donna, for penning a great novel well worth reading.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.MichaelChapman05
Posted July 30, 2012
I was honored to preview Donna VanLiere's book "The Good Dream". The story takes place in an era that I grew up in, though not in Tennessee. It took me back in time to my Mississippi roots and childhood beliefs, but resurrected the biases of that era. It hurt sometimes to relive the negatives that were considered normal behavior at the time, but Donna offset those with the spiritual good in people, that was often repressed for fear of retribution. An interesting writing style was used to convey each person's viewpoint in the form of a chapter title. If you loved Donna's Christmas books, this is a must read! Her empathy and pathos in her writing still flourishes, and, most assuredly, will bring a tear to your eye many times!
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Posted July 29, 2012
I received The Good Dream as an advanced copy and was it every worth waiting for. The story line will make you laugh, cry, and everything inbetween. Did not want to put it down when I started reading it. Finished it in 2 evenings.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.riau74
Posted July 28, 2012
The Good Dream by Donna Vanliere will not be forgotten and I sure hope it goes up to the #1 Bestseller list. Book takes place in the 50's and we all know times were different back that and small town people were nosy! Ivorie the main character has just delt with the death of her parents and is considered by towns people to be an old maid even thou she is only in her early 30's. After they pass Ivorie and one of the locals realize they like each other so George begins to kind of court Ivorie but during this time Ivorie and her dog sally go out to the garden daily and realized that some veggies are going missing peas right out of the pod among other veggies so she sets a trap and finds it is not an animal but a young boy that has come over the mountain and is starving. The evil man that has him let his mama die and then has tortured this poor kid more than any child should ever have to endure! after the boy comes so many times he stops and after Ivorie talks to the towns people she realizes how bad the mountain man must be so she takes her brothers mule and goes for the boy! Well after that I dont want to give more away but it will make you cry, laugh, tick you off b/c you could beat the tar out of this man and so on.....Donna just pulls you in with the characters and the town and you can imagine yourself there. I would compare her in the same path as Cathy Lamb and Marie Bostwick. Just books you think after you are done that man that was an awesome book and good and bad happens every day and you close the book and you just have this feeling about you that you were darn glad you didnt miss reading that book! I was on Donna's dream team which meant i promised to get the word out on her book, do face book posts, mail out postcards and book markers etc and of course read the book and review it before or shortly after it came out and due to health issues I am a bit late, sorry donna but i did all the other stuff too.! I am so thankful to be on her team she sent me a advance readers addition and signed it! this book will never leave my home however reading it my hand must have been on the oover too much and the L and 5/12 rubbed off :(. wah. BUY IT, READ IT, REVIEW IT TELL OTHERS HOW GREAT IT WAS. 5* Donna you deserve it on this one girlfriend!!!
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Posted July 28, 2012
I have always enjoyed Donna VanLiere's books, but this is absolutely amazing. A tender story of courage and doing the right thing. When I go to the book stores, all I see are crime novels--the darker side of humanity. The Good Dream, however, shows us what all of us are capable of.
I have told everyone I know about this amazing story and how it touched my heart.
Thank you, Donna.
Wiccan1181
Posted July 27, 2012
I Also Recommend:
I had the great pleasure of recieving an advanced copy of this amazingly beautiful and vibrant novel... Your imagination runs wild as you turn the pages to find out what happens next... I enjoy reading all of Donna VanLiere's novels because I am able to become one of the many people... I highly recomend this novel and all other she has written... Thank you Donna...
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted July 25, 2012
I have read Donna’s Christmas books and have enjoyed them all. The Good Dream is very different, but still good. It is set in the 1950's and tells of the relationship of an “old maid” and a little boy. There are places that are hard to read and you will probably cry, but it has a very good message of doing what you know is right in your heart despite what others think.
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Posted July 24, 2012
Loved this book! I have read her Christmas books (The Christmas Shoes) and couldn't wait each Christmas for the new one to come out. When I heard she was writing her first full length novel, I had high expectations and was not disappointed! I couldn't put this book down. I was drawn into the story and still days later think about the characters and their lives. It has a little bit of everything! Drama, love, and some humor. You read thoughts of different characters like Jodi Picoult and it tugs at your heart like Nicholas Sparks! I would recommend this book to everyone.
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Posted July 23, 2012
Donna VanLiere is an amazing writer. Her characters are alive and stick with you. I feel like I know them. I want to be neighbors with them.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Jasmyne321
Posted July 23, 2012
I couldn't put this book down. It was packed with drama which grabbed your heartstrings and made me want to laugh, cry, get angry with certain characters. I highly recommend this book. Donna Van Liere is one of my favorite authors and I'm delighted to see her move beyond holiday stories.
I'm hoping for a sequel to this one.
Overview
From The New York Times bestselling author comes a poignant, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting novel about an unlikely path to motherhood, and of two lost souls healing each other
1950 Tennessee, a time and place that straddles the past and present. Ivorie Walker is considered an old maid by the town (though she’s only in her early thirties) and she takes that label with good humor and a grain of salt. Ever since her parents passed away, she has hidden her ...