“Christmas at Harrington’s” by Melody Carlson was a different kind of story than I normally read. The story is about a woman, Helena (Lena) Markham, who has just been paroled from prison. Instead of going home to Indiana, she wants to be far away from her home town and is placed in New Haven, Connecticut where a job awaits her. As she is travelling on the bus, she befriends a nice older woman who provides her with a sandwich and some much needed companionship. Moira talks about her son and his 14-year-old daughter and is very supportive of Lena’s new job at Harrington’s.
Lean gets a room in a boarding house and befriends a young mother and her daughter who are fleeing from an abusive home. She offers to babysit the daughter while her mother works if it doesn’t interfere with her new job. Lena meets some very nice people in her new town. She opens up to a motherly sort and tells her about the reason she was incarcerated.
When I first started reading this story, I was not too sympathetic of Lena. As I got deeper into the story, I felt so sorry for Lena and for all the bad things that seemed to keep happening to her. I was loathe to put the book down because I felt that something good would come to her soon. I was right.
I loved this story. It was a very sweet and tender tale. I had a feel-happy feeling after reading this novel and that always tells me that the book was really good.
I downloaded a free kindle copy from Amazon.com and my review is my own.
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