Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Nowhere but Home

Oh how I love Liza Palmer. I have been a Liza Palmer fan for quite some time so as soon as I had the chance to review this one I jumped on the bandwagon of awesome people who were reviewing it. And yay- it didn't disappoint!

Nowhere But Home - Liza Palmer
Nowhere but Home

The strategy on the gridiron of Friday Night Lights is nothing compared to the savagery of coming home . . .
Queenie Wake has just been fired from her job as a chef for not allowing a customer to use ketchup . . . again. Now the only place she has to go is North Star, Texas, the hometown she left in disgrace. Maybe things will be different this time around. After all, her mother—notorious for stealing your man, your car, and your rent money—has been dead for years. And Queenie’s sister, once the local teenage harlot who fooled around with the town golden boy, is now the mother of the high school football captain.
Queenie’s new job, cooking last meals at the nearby prison, is going well . . . at least the inmates don’t complain! But apparently small-town Texas has a long memory for bad reputations. And when Queenie bumps into Everett Coburn, the high school sweetheart who broke her heart, she wishes her own memory was a little spottier. But before Queenie takes another chance on love, she’ll have to take an even bigger risk: finding a place to call home once and for all.
The thing about Liza Palmer novels is that I never feel like I've gotten enough at the end. I always feel like there should be a sequel and there never is and I'm just always like, what the hell, Liza? Help a girl out here. But really, it doesn't matter and I can't be mad for too long because at the end of the day they are really good books all on their own. And I always really love her characters. They are just so inherently screwed up and need professional counseling but who cares because we really all root for the hot messes, don't we? 
And Queenie is a really great hot mess. How could you not be when you have the name Queen Elizabeth Wake and your mother is the town slut who gets murdered by her best friend once said best friend found her sleeping with her husband? I mean, it's very Days of our Lives and I love it. So Queenie is a hot mess who essentially runs from her home town because the Wake family has a reputation of sorts that the children don't live up to because none of the things said about them are actually true. They are living down the shame of their long dead mother. But after a series of jobs that don't work out in more exciting cities, Queenie finds herself back home. 
Of COURSE she runs into the love of her life who is a hometown hero with a good family name and she is not that. She also has a sister who has stayed behind to make a life in the hometown and just wants to break through the stigma of the family name and she thinks that will happen with her son becoming the star football player because in Texas- if you are a star high school football player you are basically royalty. 
The best part? Oh the best part is the job she gets herself to obviously pay the bills. She is a chef and a great one at that, so she becomes the person who makes the last meal for death row inmates. I know, right? So while you have your regular chick lit novel in there, Liza gets clever with you to put the whole death row thing into the book and you see how it wears on Queenie when she analyzes the meal and tries to figure it out. Which is really well done and I loved that aspect to the book. 
Overall? I loved this book. But I love Liza Palmer and I'm a super fan forever. Please check out her website (so you can see the other books of hers you have missed), her Facebook, Twitter, or her blog
Follow on Bloglovin


5 comments:

Shooting Stars Mag said...

Oh, this does sound interesting!! Never read anything by the author, but maybe I should. I do like some messed up characters- they are just oh so fascinating. The idea of making last meals for death row inmates is quite interesting too...never thought about who makes them!

-Lauren

middle child said...

This sounds like a very interesting novel. I need to look into it.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad her latest book didn't disappoint one of her superfans. :)

Thanks for being a part of the tour.

Julie H said...

Sounds like an interesting one! I'm going to add it to my to read list!

Ruth said...

Sounds good, I will check it out.