Review of Reinventing Leona by Lynne Gentry

What a fun story, with serious undertones!

Lynne has a special touch of writing wry humor that tickles the funny bone. Her delightful comparisons are sprinkled throughout the book and add to her writing attraction. Place the characters in a parsonage atmosphere with quite a few disgruntled and quaint people, and you have a well-written book that gets its point across.

When Leona suddenly loses her minister husband one Sunday, she finds herself with two floundering grown-up children, a parrish full of meddling people, and a dismal future for herself. How to help her beloved children and find herself too?

Her well-meaning friend, Roxie, arms her with a professional look for her first job interview, altering her sad resume with updated and well worded points. Fortunately, the editor of the town's one newspaper is a gentle man as well as a wise one. Leona is hired.

In the meantime her children face their own career and life choices. Running from God and the overbearing church people who ran his entire child's life, David moves away and chooses a career far from a minister like his father "endured." Maddie, on the otherhand, with an almost full-fledged doctor's degree, runs from the one person who can give her the love of a lifetime. Leona has her work cut out to pray for them.

On top of all that, an aristocratic mother who has always made it plain, Leona married beneath herself, takes this time to appear for a unwanted visit. Add to that a senior elder determined to get Leona out of the parsonage as soon as possible, and you have a situation abounding with trials and complexities enough to drive the most meek to ringing their hands.

In spite of all that, Leona, finds that God never leaves her, and if she will let him, does take care of her and all the problems. And might even give her an attitude adjustment, along with opening her eyes to the basic value of even those she eyes with veiled dislike.

Even the best of us can use a little reinventing if we'll just let God be God.

Enjoy the book!

Blessings.