I can't only imagine how hard it must be to find yourself dealing with the grief of losing your husband, but then learning that you are left penniless and with a mountain of debt you didn't even know existed. With no where to go, Ruth Henderson decides to pack up her stuff and leave her old life behind and move back in with her parents in Southwell, Nottinghamshire along with her 14-year old daughter Maggie, whose way of dealing with what she is going through is coloring her hair wild colors. It doesn't make her all that popular in school and soon she finds herself being teased. Her only outlet is to resort to violence which leads to repetitive phone calls from the principal to have Ruth attempt to curtain her daughter's wild side.
Ruth knows in order to move forward she has to find a way to pay off the debt without her parents help, even though they offer to write a check to cover all her debts. She wills herself to take a job working for a classmate, who subsequently had an interest in the boy she fell in love with at school and soon retribution occurs when Vanessa, the clothing store owner, takes out her frustrations on Ruth as a way of her coming to beg for a job. Ruth finds solace in her mother's well intentions to get out of the house and make some friends and finds herself meeting with a great group of women once a month, who share their own frustrations in life at the moment over some great food, and plenty of prayers.
Ruth's only regret is the love she left behind even after she married her husband, and that is of her best friend and neighbor David Carrington, who is a TV personality on his own wildlife safari show and comes to town fairly regularly. With trying to find a way to keep her own head above water and keep her feelings for David locked away in the past, you know it is only matter of time before they too come to the surface to be dealt with. It is a story of hope, love, forgiveness and redemption that come with a life well lived.
I received I Hope You Dance by Beth Moran compliments of Kregel Publications. I did not receive any monetary compensation, aside from a free copy of this book in exchange for my own honest and personal opinions. This is the second book I have read from Beth Moran and once again love the escape back to old England to immerse myself in the small town life and English literature that accompanies her books. The characters are well developed and ones that seem truly genuine that you can care about what is going on in their lives. Not only do you find yourself rooting for Ruth and David but the many secondary characters we are introduced to like David's housekeeper Ana Luisa and his father, but also between Maggie and Seth who have more in common than they think. For me, this one deserved a full 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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nice review.
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