Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: Sugar Plums for Dry Creek
Author: Janet Tronstad
Publisher: Steeple Hill
ISBN: 0-373-87339-5
Release Date: November 2005
Genre/Sub-genre: Inspirational Romance
Year/Setting: Current/Texas
Overall rating: 4.75
Sexual content rating: Very Subtle
Janet's Website: None found
It is Halloween today and I am beginning to look towards Christmas. Do you feel the need to pump up the spirit in order to get in the mood for shopping, baking, company and everything associated with the holidays?
Sugar Plums for Dry Creek is a special love story surrounding a small town in Montana. Lizette Baker has lost her mother and is grieving from her absence. While her mother was in the hospital, she had found an ad advertising free space to rent. In order to quiet her mother, Lizette made the call from her room and thereby fulfilling her mother’s dying wish to see The Baker School of Ballet founded. Her mother was calmed by knowing Lizette finally had a location for the school and gave her the money she had saved over the years – along with extracting the promise to complete the dream.
What Lizette’s mom didn’t know was the free space was in Montana while they lived in Seattle. On the flip side of the coin, the folks on the revitalization committee in Montana thought Lizette wanted the space for a "bakery" not for a "Baker School of Ballet". Big surprises all around. While Lizette has been supporting herself as a baker, she made a promise to her mother and she intends to see it through.
She is unwittingly helped by a little girl who sees the costume for one of the parts in the abridged version of The Nutcracker. The beautiful costume is too big of an allure for this young dreamer and her second cousin (her mother has basically disappeared at this point leaving her with Judd Bowman, her cousin) can’t refuse that little face.
As Lizette gathers the players for her production, her ambition, drive, and sweetness (both in herself personally and the donuts and other sweets offered as bribes) draws her into the hearts of the townspeople but most especially Judd and his two little wards.
I have to say that Janet Tronstad has created a beautiful holiday love story that is sure to warm the hearts of the biggest cynic alive. The townspeople are fresh and yet familiar and the town itself is a refreshing vision for the mind. While the love story unfolds, there is also a big of intrigue blended into the story with confusion as to where the children’s mother went and the unwelcome anticipation of their abusive father reappearing to take them away.
The story creates a new family within a family and the picture of the amateur Nutcracker is sure to bring a smile to your face. Not to mention taking a break from the hustle and bustle to visit a place of holiday peace.
Happy Holidays,
Lori
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