Tamara Leigh. Leaving Carolina. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 2009.

Piper Wick (formerly Pickwick) has built a nice life for herself in Los Angeles.  Her public relations firm has a lot of politicians and Hollywood people as clients, and one professional relationship, with Colorado Congressman Grant Spangler, has recently turned into a romance.  Piper has no interest in returning to her hometown of Pickwick, North Carolina, a place she fled twelve years ago.

Piper returns only because Uncle Obe, the odd ball of his generation (as Piper is of hers), has drafted a new tell-all will.  Uncle Obe plans to make amends for financial shenanigans, tax evasion, and non-support of two illegitimate children.  Making amends will reduce the inheritance of the surving family members.  Piper doesn’t care about that, but she is alarmed when she learns that Uncle Obe plans to reveal one of her teenage misadventures.  Back to Pickwick she heads, to dissuade him.

Like most of her family members, she blames Uncle Obe’s newly-found conscience on the influence of his godson, Obediah Axel Smith.  Piper sets a private investigator to find out about this Smith character, but as she spends time in Pickwick she finds herself attracted to him and to the righteousness that he urges on her.  When Piper starts thinking in a new way, small town Pickwick and her crazy family don’t seem so bad.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

2 Comments

Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Leigh, Tamara, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

2 Responses to Tamara Leigh. Leaving Carolina. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 2009.

  1. I’ve heard great things about this book. If you want to review it, go to http://www.top10books.org and submit your review; you may get published and exposed to thousands of viewers a month!

  2. Let’s visit Pickwick, North Carolina. Home of the Pickwick family. Piper Wick had left her hometown of Pickwick twelve years ago, gotten rid of that Southern drawl, changed her name (a bit). She is a big-wig in the public relations business in LA and she is just about to become engaged to a US Congressman. Piper just about has a perfect life WITHOUT the help of the Pickwick’s of North Carolina.

    But her Uncle Obadiah Pickwick has surfaced in her life with health problems (you do get them as you “age”) and a change of heart that involves the Pickwick money and past family secrets and troubles.

    So Piper travels “home” to Pickwick to do her part.

    There is now a man at the scene that is somehow involved in Uncle Obadiah’s change of heart and desire for restitution. So an enchanting mystery of circumstances and hearts unfolds. Piper trying to do her part with her PR skills. Some truth. And a generous dose of the Lord’s help.

    Prepare yourself for an enjoyable reader’s ride into North Carolina and Tamara Leigh’s very good writing.

    I read this book through my local Public Library and was not asked or implored or whatever to render any review at all. I just wanted to share my “take” on another “Carolina” book with you folks. ISBN: 9781601421661