Prairie Springs was released in late November by L.R. Williamson. A novel with Tales of the City appeal, takes a glimpse into the lives of Anna Aron, a Jewish New Yorker who leaves her Wall Street job to accept a teaching position in small, hyper-religious, Prairie Springs, TX, and Kyle Brickey, her gay best friend.

Equally as important as the two main characters, are the town of Prairie Springs and its residents. From the grandmother figure who keeps a spare joint tucked in her wig, to the aging hooker who dresses as a super-heroine to please one of her clients, the book is an entertaining read.

The author makes hatred so repulsive that the decision to love is involuntary. By the end, the reader wants to move to Prairie Springs and be a part of the hysterical hysteria. Several days after finishing the book, I was still hoping to be invited for coffee with the poised, Bree VanDecamp-ish mayor’s wife. She, like most everyone else in the book, has a secret. When the web of secrets begins to unravel, all hell breaks lose, leading up to a surprise ending destined to be as shut-lipped as The Crying Game.

Rec'd today. Looking forward to reading!

01/17/08 Sorry got a bit behind, but am starting book today & looking forward to it!

This is the list of readers I have from the author:

pammykn/FL-US
kobie03/CANADA
LeishaCamden/NORWAY
playtheman/AUSTRALIA
MOZETTE/AUSTRALIA
LyzzyBee/UK

01/23/08
TITLE/AUTHOR: PRAIRIE SPRINGS by L. R. Williamson
RATING: 5/A
GENRE/PUB DATE/# OF PGS: Fiction/2007/339 pgs
SERIES/STAND ALONE: Stand-Alone
TIME/PLACE: Present/Prairie Springs, TX
CHARACTERS: Anna/school teacher Kyle/artist
FIRST LINES: "Move in one!"

COMMENTS:
12/18 rec via bookcrosing ring/ray. The characters/residents of Prairie Springs were so welcoming I did not want the book to end. I do hope their stories will continue, I definitely would like a return visit to Prairie Springs. In brief, Anna moves from NYC to a small town near Austin, TX ... not only is she a Yankee but she is also Jewish, unmarried in her early 30's and her best friend is Kyle, a gay man from NYC. Not exactly typical of the population of her new hometown where most of the community has not strayed too far from the town limits and attends one of 3 Baptist churches. L. R. Williamson gives us an entertaining & endearing story about tolerance and accepting the differences whether they be size/age/sexual persuasion, etc. w/ a cast of characters that are ones you will love getting to know.

Thanks L. R. Williamson for sharing this book! Will send off to Kobie03 today.

Book arrived today. thanks for sharing. I have a few rings ahead of it but I'll try to have it on it's way in a few weeks.

Entertaining read. Anna and Kyle move to Prarie Springs and quickly make friends with an assortment of the residents and a change in the town and its people begins and keeps your interest until the end. now i find myself wondering how they're doing. thanks for sharing this book.
In the mail tomorrow to LeishaCamden.

edited Feb 29: due to those never-ending winter storms I didn't get this book in the mail when I said I would. posted via surface mail to LeishaCamden on Feb 28. sorry for the delay. Thanks for your patience. I PMed Leisha Camden to explain.

Look what arrived in my mailbox today!! :-)

Thank you so much to LRWilliamson for sharing this book and to kobie for sending it on to me. (And for good measure, to pammy too for keeping the ray moving! :-) I am swamped with rings & rays at the moment so I will no doubt have to take longer than I should to read this ... but rest assured that I definitely will read it and will post a review here when I have done so, before getting the book back on the road again.

I'm really looking forward to reading this novel - a book I would never have gotten the chance to read, probably would never even have heard about - if it hadn't been for BookCrossing. You gotta love it!! :-D

I finally started reading this on Saturday, June 28th. Entertaining so far! I'm enjoying the book and I'll journal again when I've finished it. Thanks for sharing!!

I am so slow ... ! Seriously, I am like the slowest journaller ever. Shame on me. I have finished this book, quite a while ago, on July 6th actually. I just haven't gotten around to journalling it before now. I’m sorry! Better late than never, I hope.

This was an entertaining book, which IMO should not have been self-published ... it may need a little more editing, but that said, I don't think it's any worse and sometimes much better than a lof of other stuff that gets published these days. :-) I hope it reaches a wider readership with time. Thank you for giving me the chance to read it.

There were things I would have changed about it though ... some scenes seemed kind of over-explanatory to me, with things spelled out that any reasonably intelligent reader would have been able to figure out on his/her own without having the details explained. (Of course I can't remember any specific examples of this now. Shame on me.) The dialogue flowed well sometimes and seemed forced at other times ... like I said, the book would have benefited from stricter editing. But I'm almost tempted to say that that's true of most books ... ;-)

One thing in the plot that I found less than credible was the burials that took place down by the river – first one, then another – it did not seem believable to me that this was permitted. And also the character who is buried in a garden. I guess this may be a cultural thing ... maybe in the US this would be legal. In my country this would NEVER have been permitted and if anyone should have done it they would probably have found themselves in jail for it eventually. (And the gravesite moved, of course.) So I found this very hard to credit. Not just because it seemed unlikely to someone of my cultural background, but also because the town was depicted as so strict and so religious ... I found it hard to believe that this would have been accepted.

But overall this book was a very enjoyable read. I really liked the various storylines and the way they were interwoven – reminiscent of Armistead Maupin. The biggest strength of the book is probably the characters – a lot of really good characters here. If there is ever a sequel I will definitely be reading that too if I can get hold of it. :-)

Thank you so much to the author for sharing this book with all of us, and thanks to the other ray members for keeping this book on the road!!

The book will be travelling again soon.