The first book in this series randomly popped up in my kindle unlimited suggestions and I thought hmmm… might be interesting, but maybe not. Let’s try it. And so read In the Company of Men and was hooked. 🙂 I have to admit to some skepticism though since a rather leery of anything slightly romance-y. BUT I LIKED IT! I did. I was so surprised. In the Company of Men made me laugh, made me worried, raised my suspicions, and surprised me. Good stuff eh? 🙂 And so I want to tell you about Carolyn Finch’s Lemon Sugar Series.
The Basics Details for In the Company of Men
Title: The Lemon Sugar Series
Author: Carolyn Finch
Series: Lemon Sugar
Publisher:
Pages: 376
Intended Audience: adult
Genre: mystery, historical fiction, crime fiction, history, women’s fiction, cozy mystery,
Available formats: paperback, kindle
Three books in the series.
All follow a similar theme. Gal has a need … provide for her family in a male-dominated world of the 1920’s. Runs into issue, with a touch of mystery about it, meets a guy who is willing to prove useful/helpful, lots of feel good emotions, and a story well-told. TOTAL win for me. 🙂
Author is Carolyn Finch who is a new author to me. I do plan on finishing this series and then hope to find others by her. She produces feel good stories with a romance element that doesn’t make me gag. 🙂 Ms. Finch loves to read and grew up as part of a farming community. This lifestyle is steeped in her blood and she still loves living on the farm.
So What Did I Think?
It was so refreshing to delve into romantic women’s fiction and not have my gag reflex stimulated. The romance in this read was realistic and not the central focus. And I laughed! Oh my, the number of times I laughed, and at one point even entered a cry of dismay. That of course created conversation twixt me and a coworker and who knows… maybe I encouraged her to try this series! 🙂
Set in the 1920’s I loved the quiet romance and the promise of a new life. I loved how both the men and woman wanted to do what is right and good. The not so nice people were fairly obvious and easy to not like (making it super easy to cheer for the good folk). I loved the men being men and the women being women. No gender confusion, just the simplicity of men and women being who they are.
I do have to admit to some dismay at the speed of the romance. But I’ve read a number of historical books where in the older west relationships proceeded fairly quickly, so this wasn’t totally unexpected. But the romance wasn’t central to the story and events would have played out well with or without it, so nice to have a story like this. Both of the first two books in this series were similar in style, I expect Hope and Dreams to be the same.
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