Friends to the End by Shelley Shepard Gray (2019)
Walnut Creek #0.5
112-page Kindle Ebook story pages 4-98
Genre: Christian Romance, Amish Fiction
Rating as a movie: PG-13 for adult situations
Featuring: Epigraphs, February, Naples, Florida; Siblings, Friendships, Walnut Creek, Ohio; President's Day Weekend, Vicenarians, College Student, New Order Amish, Pennsylvania Dutch - German, Englisch and Amish Trope, Close Proximity Trope, Secret Crush Trope, Forbidden Love Trope - Friend's Sibling, Charm, Ohio, Secluded Cabin, Multiple POVs, Flashbacks, Sexual Innuendos, Cleveland, Ohio; New Philadelphia, Ohio; Series Setup, Series Bibliography for this Walnut Creek, Preview of The Patient One - Chapter One
Books and Authors mentioned: The Frog Prince by the Brothers Grimm
My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️☃️🐴🏠
My thoughts: This was a little more contemporary than expected. Overall it was okay. It sets up the series, but I wasn't crazy about it. I found the flashbacks to be confusing and out of place for half the book. I am looking forward to the first novel so it did its job.
Note Kindle has this as Book 5, but I checked the author's website and 0.5 is the correct order. Kindle has the novels first followed by the novellas while Shelley Shepard Gray, Goodreads, and Fantastic Fiction use publication order.
Recommend to others: Sure. The characters are intriguing.
Walnut Creek
0.5. Friends to the End (2019)
1. The Patient One (2019)
2. The Loyal One (2019)
2.5. A Precious Gift (2019)
3. The Protective One (2020)
4. The Trustworthy One (2020)
5. Promises of Tomorrow (2020)
Walnut Creek Kindle Order (Incorrect)
1. The Patient One (2019)
2. The Loyal One (2019)
3. The Protective One (2020)
4. The Trustworthy One (2020)
5. Friends to the End (2019)
6. A Precious Gift (2019)
7. Promises of Tomorrow (2020)
Memorable Quotes: A long time ago she came to understand that, while Andy Warner excelled at always having all the friends and all the answers, she’d always been very, very good at messing up. She’d given up wondering why God had doled out His gifts in such a lopsided way. Maybe He had a sense of humor? Every time Tricia was unwise enough to complain to her mother about how she’d never had a group of friends like Andy and was always trying to crawl her way out of some crisis, her mother had shaken her head in dismay. And then proceeded to remind Tricia that she had plenty of gifts her older brother didn’t. Using her fingers to help drive her point home, Mom had recounted Tricia’s attributes in a way that would have made most people squirm. First, Tricia had been given an ability to memorize information effortlessly, which made school fairly easy for her. God had also given her a wealth of pleasing features. She had long, thick, brown hair, brown eyes, and smooth skin that had hardly known a blemish. And while she’d never been especially thin, she certainly wasn’t obese or anything. Just normal. Of course, Mom had called her pretty. Even though Tricia had rolled her eyes and reminded her mother that high test scores and good looks weren’t everything, her mother often scoffed and said that only a girl who had been blessed with both would say such things.
Embarrassed, Tricia had learned to keep her mouth shut but would have gladly traded some of those looks for the ability to make friends easily. She would have gladly given back her string of honor rolls and academic awards for a sliver of common sense. And now, here she was, standing next to a window in an empty cabin in the middle of a snowstorm. Still struggling with her poor choices and self-doubts. “One day you’re going to learn to think ahead, Tricia Warner,” she said to the empty room. “Maybe even look at a weather report before you take off on your own into the woods.”