Fiction Friday with Melody Carlson!

Melody Carlson's Once Upon a Summertime has so much appeal for the young reader. Have you every had a dream only to have roadblocks detouring the high road to the alley with ruts you clearly want ed to miss?  When Anna Gordon finished graduate school she never dreamed she would be back in Springville managing the Value Lodge!  Her dream was to visit the world and manage a 5-star hotel not sleep on her grandmother's sofa and manage a -1 motel. 

Her career takes a  right turn when she bumps into Marley, an old friend who happens to be helping out at her family's restaurant for a couple of weeks.  Marley leads an exciting life in New York as an international flight attendant.  While Anna may be embarrassed to share her current career, Marley is not shy about offering advice about getting Anna out of Springville and onto the fast track at a boutique hotel opening up in New York.  Anna Get a call for an interview for the Rothsberg, but before she can take her references to New York she is fired from her job a Value Lodge. Trying to make changes at a motel that was content to be just a cheap spot on the road backfired.                                                                                                 Without references for the past two years she can't compete with Sean O'Neil, former manager of a boutique hotel in Dublin. Anna lands a good job at the Rothsberg. Sean, who is also from her hometown of Springville, is falling for Anna and she is doing her best to avoid a strict policy on office romance.                                                                                                            There are a lot of wonderful twists to the plot and I don't want to spoil any one of them for a reader considering this book for purchase. I recommend this as a good addition to your summer reading list. You will share with Anna's joys, fret with her worries and find joy after all. Pick up a copy at your favorite bookseller or get an ebook to read it right away!  As with her other books Melody Carlson develops her characters into people you can identify with as yourself, a friend or someone else who had that dilemma you shared between the pages. Once Upon a Summer time is the first book in her new Follow Your Heart Series.  Enjoy!