{"id":76,"date":"2012-05-28T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/the-ride-of-her-life-by-lorna-seilstad.html"},"modified":"2012-05-28T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T04:00:00","slug":"ride-of-her-life-by-lorna-seilstad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/ride-of-her-life-by-lorna-seilstad\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ride Of Her Life By Lorna Seilstad"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

The Ride Of Her Life by Lorna Seilstad<\/a><\/p>\n

Lilly is a widowed mother who is financially struggling to raise her son (Levi) alone. Ben, her deceased husband, was a well-to-do lawyer from an upscale family. Ben’s parents are determined to take their grandson (Levi) away from Lilly. They even call the sheriff to help them get custody because Lilly is living in a tent at Lake Manawa with her son since she can’t afford her own house. Lilly makes other living arrangements, but, she’s\u00a0determined\u00a0to purchase a home of her own – it’s her dream to have her own house. <\/p>\n

Lilly works\u00a0hard at Thornton’s Lunch Counter, making\u00a0breakfast, lunch,\u00a0and dinner each day for Nick (the crew leader)\u00a0and his rollercoaster crew. Nick hates that Lilly’s in-laws are trying to take her son away to send him\u00a0to boarding school, so, he’s determined to help Lilly in any way that he can. He even becomes a father figure to Levi. Levi is a classic boy who enjoys climbing trees, chasing frogs and having pet snakes. However, Lilly finds herself wondering what’ll happen when\u00a0the\u00a0summer comes to an end and\u00a0Nick’s roller coaster crew leaves when the construction of the roller coaster\u00a0is done? Will Levi be crushed because Nick, his father-figure friend, will be leaving Lake\u00a0Manawa? Lilly doesn’t want her son to get his feelings hurt, however, Levi is not the only person that Lilly wonders about. <\/p>\n

Lilly finds herself becoming smitten with Nick. She enjoys his company a little too much.\u00a0However, she’s hesitant on starting another relationship with a man since she’s still struggling to raise her son alone after the death of her husband. Does she really need to\u00a0get emotionally involved with another man right now? Will Nick be dependable?<\/p>\n

Nick suffers from his own scars. He’s spent part of his childhood in an orphanage and he’s lost his little brother. Plus, he had a broken engagement. It’s kind of hard for him to trust others, too. He’s out to prove his worth by making sure his roller coaster project is a success. He works hard to complete the roller coaster in time for the summer season. However, it appears that someone is out to sabotage his project and he’s determined to defeat whomever is trying to make him fail.<\/p>\n

This story was refreshing and I found it interesting that the author showed a roller coaster being built during a historical time. I also liked the setting.\u00a0Lake Manawa is a vivid,\u00a0pleasant place to spend the summer. I also enjoyed reading about Lilly cooking food for\u00a0Nick’s crew. I loved reading about the different meals she prepared and I\u00a0also liked how she taught Eugenia, her kitchen assistant, how to cook.\u00a0I enjoy reading stories that are set in a kitchen because food is one of my favorite subjects to read about in a novel! Overall, this was a good, intriguing, and slightly-suspenseful\u00a0read.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Baker\/Revell for providing me with a free review copy.<\/p>\n

~Cecelia Dowdy~<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ride Of Her Life by Lorna Seilstad Lilly is a widowed mother who is financially struggling to raise her son (Levi) alone. Ben, her deceased husband, was a well-to-do lawyer from an upscale family. Ben’s parents are determined to take their grandson (Levi) away from Lilly. They even call the sheriff to help them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bakerrevell","category-historicals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paovYP-1e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}