Given "Special Recognition" by the 7-Eleven Corporation.
Captivated by four elderly people who decide to buy an old house to live in, Hallie Marsh soon discovers what is really important in her own life.
All in one day, thirty-five-year-old Hallie Marsh learns that the man she loves, works for, and is living with has found someone else—and that she no longer has a job, a place to live, or a car since she crashed it into a hedge.She retreats to her parents' home in the northern part of Florida to be consoled and to decide what to do with the rest of her life only to find out that her mother is planning to leave her father for another man.Embittered, filled with anger, and wanting revenge, Hallie decides to take a year's sabbatical and write a novel that would reveal the unethical, if not illegal, real estate business practices of her former boss and lover. The focus of her novel soon changes, however, when she becomes fascinated with her new neighbors—four peculiar, elderly people who decide to buy an old run-down estate, fix it up, and live in it “just like family.” With this new focus and the support of her two best friends, Carol Mathews and Gordon Sebastian Cooney, Hallie overcomes her feelings of rage, she is able to cope with her mother's sudden death, and she finds true love.
Excerpt
Hallie smiled at the secretary, hoping that her demeanor was that of a public relations director going into a meeting with the president of the company and not of a woman who was going to make love to her boss in his office at four o'clock in the afternoon. "Thanks, Mary," she said shifting her notebook in an exaggerated movement from one hand to the other, feeling slightly embarrassed. She suppressed the urge to giggle, something she frequently did whenever she felt self-conscious, and walked past the secretary's desk.
Professional Reviews
Love and Romance and Much More
Love and romance, yes. But much more. JUST LIKE FAMILY reflects with sensitivity the intensity, the warmth, the need, the possibilities of friendship. We meet people of different races, backgrounds and ages who all find themselves somehow tied together in a time and place. Hardships, relationships, tragedies challenge the characters. The reader joins and emotionally shares with them the voyage of discovery that ensues. Ultimately we learn the goal and, trust me, we are enhanced as much as the characters we have come to know and love. This is a book to treasure. For today's readers, subjected to troubling news from around the world, Just Like Family comes as a panacea. Thank you Barbara Casey.
Lighthearted and Wonderful Novel
Barbara Casey shines again! This time, she does it with a lighthearted wonderful novel. "Just Like Family" in which she gives us a view of diverse personalities with entwined lives. Her writing, precise and detailed makes you feel like you are part of the novel and not on the outside looking in.
As a devoted follower of her works, I find that like her previous novels "The Coach's Wife", "Shyla's Initiative" and "The House of Kane", she handles diverse threads with ease, threads, which can be followed from beginning to end without getting lost.
The book shows the virtues of "mental strength" and "drive" that can follow downturns in one's life, involving love, trust, relationships, neighborly acceptance and other daily attributes that make people come close together and be able to help each other.
In this day and age of hurried lives, this book with its 250 pages is an easy read.
In a post-coup America, an Illinois farm boy is drawn into the resistance by his brother's death. Captured, he is given a choice: betray his friends, or the girl he loves will be lobotomized.
