Dreams of Arcadia by Brian Porter

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Dreams of Arcadia by Brian Porter

DREAMS OF ARCADIA by Brian Porter
Contemporary FictionPublisher: Legacy Book PressDate of Publication: June 27, 2023Number of Pages: 222 pages 
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Veterinarian Nate Holub takes a job in his father’s Texas hometown, wondering if a city boy has what it takes to be a country vet. As he struggles to adapt, Nate reconnects with his family and discovers that his father’s accidental death thirty years earlier was much more complicated than he realized.
Nate delves into the past, afraid of what he might find. He encounters a resentful cousin, a wary town patriarch, a reclusive uncle, a beguiling hidden garden, and a mysterious illness. Nate is drawn to the Holub family farm, where he seeks refuge in nature and tries desperately to reach Viola, his inscrutable grandmother. The farm is a place that haunts his memory, a place where dark secrets dwell.
Dreams of Arcadia is a touching portrait of an American family. It explores the enduring ties that hold us together and bind us to the land.
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Thank you to LSBBT and Brian Porter for a review copy of this book.

The Short Story: Dreamy, Restless, Unsettled ~ I loved it.

Houston veterinarian Nate Holub finds himself untethered from the life he knew. Divorced from a woman he still loves, he fears he’s losing his relationship with his teenage daughters. An uncle dies and Nate attends the funeral, held in his father’s hometown in rural Texas. Out of the blue, the local vet offers Nate a job. Drawn to the place by his childhood memories and the mystery of his own father’s death, Nate agrees.

Nate struggles to adjust to the difficulties of rural vet work, the long hours, the loneliness, and the suspicions of his new customers and neighbors, he doubts his ability to fit in. Stll, he’s able to forge deeper relationships with some of his family including his aged grandmother, Viola, and he begins to investigate the circumstances of his father’s tragic death, uncovering shocking family secrets as he does.

I loved this book! From the descriptive prose of the Texas countryside, the tender but realistic handling of family relationships, the budding love story drawn in a slow-arcing dance between two people wary of getting hurt, it was a pleasure to read and savor. At the heart of the story is the mystery of Nate’s father’s death, the repercussions of which are still felt in the sleepy town of Hadlow, and the resolution will shock you. All in all, a super read.

I highly recommend this book to readers who love a great story, well written, well plotted and one that lingers in the memory well after the last page is turned.

Brian Porter lives in College Station, Texas, where he works as a veterinary pathologist.
He previously worked in private veterinary practice and once taught high school chemistry. Dreams of Arcadia is his first novel.
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06/27/23

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Excerpt

06/27/23

Hall Ways Blog

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06/28/23

Reading by Moonlight

Review

06/28/23

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