Deborah Raney’s “Home at Last” book review & Facebook Party

Home At Last: A Chicory Inn Novel ― Book 5 by Deborah Raney

This is book 5 and the final book to the Chicory Inn series by author Raney. I have read all 5 books and overall I thought the series was good. Some of the books and characters I liked more than others, but I loved the concept of each book focusing on a family member and on the Chicory Inn the parents ran.

The author mostly addresses inter-racial relationships and racial hate in this book which is a pretty heavy topic. Link wants to date Shayla but her father doesn’t approve due to past inter-racial relationship struggles. Shayla is struggling to hold her life together as she becomes the mother figure to her niece and running the bakery full time with her father. She constantly experiences racism all around her and doesn’t think Link has any idea what her world is like. As Link spends more time with Shayla and Portia, he knows he will do anything to protect them and make them a part of his family.

I liked the ending of the book which wrapped up the mom’s struggles with the Inn with constantly feeling overwhelmed trying to balance her family responsibilities and running the Inn with her husband. Good ending to a good series! I would recommend reading all 5 in order to get the best character development and flow.

I received a copy of this book complimentary for blog and social media review. All opinions are my own.

About the Book
Why did their differences matter so much?

Link Whitman has settled into the role of bachelor without ever intending to. Now he’s stuck in a dead-end job and, as the next Whitman wedding fast approaches, he is the last one standing. The pressure from his sisters’ efforts to play matchmaker is getting hard to bear as Link pulls extra shifts at work, and helps his parents at the Chicory Inn.

All her life, Shayla Michaels has felt as if she straddled two worlds. Her mother’s white family labeled her African American father with names Shayla didn’t repeat in polite–well, in any company. Her father’s family disapproved as well, though they eventually embraced Shayla as their own. After the death of her mother, and her brother Jerry’s incarceration, life has left Shayla’s father bitter, her niece, Portia, an orphan, and Shayla responsible for them all. She knows God loves them all, but why couldn’t people accept each other for what was on the inside? For their hearts?

Everything changes one icy morning when a child runs into the street and Link nearly hits her with his pickup. Soon he is falling in love with the little girl’s aunt, Shayla, the beautiful woman who runs Coffee’s On, the bakery in Langhorne. Can Shayla and Link overcome society’s view of their differences and find true love? Is there hope of changing the sometimes-ugly world around them into something better for them all?

Purchase a copy here

About the author
Deborah Raney’s books have won numerous awards including the RITA, National Readers’ Choice Award, HOLT Medallion, the Carol Award, and have twice been Christy Award finalists. She and her husband, Ken, recently traded small-town life in Kansas—the setting of many of Deb’s novels—for life in the (relatively) big city of Wichita. Visit Deb on the web at DeborahRaney.com.

Conclude Deborah Raney’s Chicory Inn novels with the final book, Home at Last, a story of acceptance, trying to overcome differences, and love. Everything changes for bachelor Link Whitman one icy morning when a child runs into the street and he nearly hits her with his pickup-and then the girl’s aunt Shayla enters Link’s life. Can Shayla and Link overcome society’s view of their differences and find true love? Is there hope of changing the sometimes-ugly world around them into something better for them all?

Join Deborah on Thursday, March 23, for a live author chat party in her Facebook group with fun prizes to be won! Click the graphic below for more details and to RSVP. Hope to see you there-bring a friend or two who loves to read!