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Reviewed by Alice DiNizo for Readers' Favorite
The setting is smalltown Hollyhill, Kentucky, in the summer of 1964 and thirteen year old Jocie Brooke has had one of her prayers answered. The family dog, Stumpy, had been killed years before and Jocie wants another dog as her own. She finds ugly, hungry, dirty Zeb who must be a shepherd beagle mix of the worst kind in the woods and immediately loves him. Jocie brings him home to her father David, local newspaper editor and part-time preacher, and her elderly great aunt Love. Zeb takes on aunt Love's cat Jezebel but becomes a family member. Jocie has never known her mother, Adrienne, or older sister, Tabitha, as they left years before when Jocie was only five. But she loves her kind, patient father, David, aunt Love who burns the morning biscuits, David's newspaper helper Wes and her hometown of Hollyhill. David wants the position of temporary pastor at local Mt.Pleasant church where parishioners shower him, Jocie and aunt Love with the proceeds from their home gardens which often means cabbage. Then, someone from their past arrives on their doorstep and David suddenly has an admirer, Leigh Jackson, who is his junior by years. How will the Brooke family deal with all these changes in their lives?
"Scent of Lilacs" is one of those very special and totally delightful stories about a family and their past history which they must come to accept. Ann Gabhart has created another story that readers will not forget. Jocie, her father David, her aunt Love, Wes, Zella, Leigh Jacobson, the accepting McDermotts and the un-accepting Martins are all unforgettable and multifaceted characters that make "Scent of Lilacs" come alive. The story's plot-line runs believably to the very last pages of this book, making "Scent of Lilacs" a must read for everyone everywhere.
