I received an e-copy of this story for an honest review.
This story took me back to the time I lived in Oklahoma. Even though I was not a native Okie, and only lived there for 5 years, I miss those gatherings with my girls. The barbeques, the talks, the Bless her/his heart sessions. Yes, those things are real, and do happen in small towns. And, Sunday dinner is an absolute, do-not-miss-for-any-reason, event. Thank you Ms. Kalan for bringing back some good memories. ( )

Lilly Atkins left small town Brooks, Oklahoma to be a big city lawyer in Dallas, and was quite successful at--until everything came crashing down with the discovery of her fiancé in their shared bed with his secretary. Now she's home in Brooks, setting up a local law practice.

She knows she's got trouble when her high school on-and-off boyfriend walks in the door, wanting her to handle his divorce. She just doesn't know how much trouble.

Lilly Atkins and her female family and friends take the duties and responsibilities of Southern womanhood very seriously, and that means some entertaining petty revenge when the husband of one of their number is caught cheating on her. It's a bit less clear what it means when Lilly's former boyfriend, now a doctor and running the local hospital, in addition to wanting a divorce, may also be engaged in organ smuggling.

The overall tone of this is light and humorous, and yet it really is, in part, about organ smuggling. That created a certain dissonance for me, that I wasn't happy about. Of course, it's also about small town closeness, the importance of family and friends, and remembering where you came from, and the light humor is far more appropriate for that.

I do rather like Lilly.

Enjoyable, if you're only looking for a light distraction sort of read.

I bought this audiobook. ( )

The publisher's blurb gives hints but makes it sound boring. So not true! There's lots of gigglesnorts here when the girlfriends get together to help each other out with problems some are having with ratfink boyfriends. Ah, the good parts of small town life! Not going to recap the story because that's just silly, so I'll just go with read it yourself. But not with a cup of hot caffeine!
I read the audio, and it's narrated by the author! Can't ever go wrong with that, and not to worry, the drawl is kind to Northern ears. ( )

I'm an eclectic reader. I will read almost anything, even the back of cereal boxes if there's nothing else. One component that really rocks my library is when an author has a sense of humor. I go along with Reader's Digest on this: Laughter is the best medicine. (A quick net search doesn't yield who originally coined the phrase but one of the closest is a quote by Henry Ward Beecher: Mirth is God’s medicine, so I'll stick with good old Reader's Digest on this one.) Anyway, that's certainly a digression, but it leads me to Home Is Where Your Boots Are by Kalan Chapman Lloyd.

Home Is Where Your Boots Are is funny. While the formula of a small town with lovable eccentric characters and a feisty heroine has been done before, Chapman Lloyd gives it her own touch, Oklahoma style. The heroine, Lilly Atkins, left Brooks, Oklahoma to go to college. She then became a lawyer and then became engaged to wealthy Van Payton Ehlers the third of the Dallas Ehlers. When Lilly discovers her fiance boinking another woman, Lilly hears home calling and returns to her support system in Brooks.cover82764-medium

But Lilly isn't really licking her wounds. Deep down she suspected that Ehlers wasn't right for her and the fact that she isn't more upset doesn't surprise her. It becomes even more apparent when Lilly encounters Cash, her old boyfriend.

Lilly's feelings toward Cash are complicated. She acknowledges this. Her level of self-understanding is one thing I really like about this character. After reading so many books where the heroine is self-deluded or defiantly tough, it was the clichéd breath-of-fresh-air to meet Lilly Atkins. She has faults--an acknowledged weak stomach and a weakness for Cash; she has strengths--she's smart and loyal; and she comes across as someone you really might meet, and even like.

As the community welcomes Lilly home, she decides that this is really what she needs and wants and decides to set up lawyering shop in Brooks. Immediately she gets embroiled in a mystery. And then there's an encounter with the "hot" mysterious Yankee Spencer Locke.

The story is pretty satisfying as is the quirky world that Chapman Lloyd has built. There are some wickedly funny lines and some philosophizing. For categorization, I would almost place this under the sub-genre of cozy mystery except that there is a touch of profanity, which is typically absent from those mysteries.

The narrative tone is conversational and sometimes on the verbose-side, a little paring down for comprehension-sake would not be unwanted. With that said, this novel definitely deserves sequels, which I hope are as good as this debut, which was first published in 2010 and then republished in 2015.

This was based on a RC from NetGalley for an honest review. ( )