A contemporary time-travel mystery featuring a family transported back in time 100 years after they finish restoring a Victorian house in Iowa.
Born and raised in Nebraska, Robert Kerr has called Iowa home for more than thirty years. He attended the University of Nebraska at Kearney, The University of Kansas at Ft.Hays, and the University of Northern Iowa. He holds a master s degree in psychology, and his career path has led him through stints as a welder, a carpenter, a mental hospital attendant, a mortician’s assistant, and a general Man Friday for an electrical engineer. Since 1976, he has been a school psychologist in Central Iowa. He and his wife, Joan, have rehabilitated five houses, including a Victorian-era house that inspired Completely Restored. The father of two grown children, he lives with his wife in Ankeny, Iowa. Completely Restored is Robert’s first novel.
Excerpt
Our time in Marshalltown had been good to us. Linda and I had three reasonably normal kids and one very odd dog. We would have had four kids but, well, things happen. After that, Linda changed. She still had those moments of impishness when she would turn the slightest thing into a giggle and the giggle into convulsive laughter for both of us. She still had those moments, but they were a lot further apart.
I thought that was how we became interested in the house in the first place. I thought Linda was looking for something to fill the void, when she saw the ad for the “beautiful 3-story Victorian house in need of some TLC.” We had admired the house from a distance for years, but never dreamed it could be ours. One peek inside and that look returned to Linda’s face for the first time since…well…since the baby.
We had had other “fixer-uppers” before, but this one was different from the very beginning. It needed more work than any of the others to be sure, but there was something else. It was as if the house pulled at our whole family. It was as if fate meant for us to live in that house. For one thing, all of our antiques fit perfectly into every room. We had just the right furniture and accent pieces for each room right down to the fully outfitted dress mannequin Linda kept in our bedroom. (I never got used to the idea of sex with her looking on.) Linda found the perfect china in an antique shop after researching it at the local library. The house even had the right number of bedrooms for our family of five. Everything was perfect. Our 1908 Victorian was the house for showing off our antiques and collections, for reviving our passion for old things, for deepening our obsession with what we thought was a better time. The house was the perfect drug for our addiction. It was a match! It wasn’t a match made in heaven, however.
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