"Learning to Feel" by N.R. Walker

Overworked city doctor moves to rural, small town where he meets a free spirit artist who changes his life for the better.  Nathan Tierney is the doctor who moves from Boston to Belfast, Maine.  Trent Jamieson is the artist who is working on the house that Nathan gets with the new job.  The two men are from very different backgrounds (Nathan - middle class, intact family; Trent - orphan with no permanent home) but find something in the other that makes them better.  Trent's dog, Bentley, plays a key role in the story.  Well-written and moving.  218 pages (Kindle edition).

"Archer's Voice" by Mia Sheridan

Bree Prescott has arrived in the small town of Pelion, Maine, having fled Ohio on the spur of the moment after surviving a horrific and terrifying event.  She doesn't know how long she will stay, so she rents a small cottage by a lake with her little dog and gets a job as a waitress at a local diner.  Soon she meets Archer Hale, a scruffy young man who never speaks and is ignored by the townspeople.  But Bree feels a connection with him and discovers a damaged yet kindred spirit who has also survived enormous tragedy. 

This was a beautiful, very moving, and emotional story that I had trouble putting down.  The author has created two soulful characters who are hurting deeply and find healing through each other.  Although he is mute, Archer is not deaf like Bree's father was.  Luckily, they both know sign language, and most of the conversations are through their hands.  Archer has been out of society since the age of seven, and Bree does her best to help him reintegrate.  She is fearless when it comes to advocating for him with the townspeople and his mean-spirited cousin.  Archer is an especially well-written character, and we get to see his journey from isolated, wounded loner to confident hero, mostly thanks to Bree.  It was told mainly in her POV, but his POV was also given in several chapters, which were sometimes difficult to read because of the subject matter.  There was just the right amount of angst, misunderstanding, and ultimately bliss to make for an amazing story.  Highly recommended.  337 pages (Kindle edition).

The Cider House Rules by John Irving

I visited Maine for the first time in September, and looked for some books with Maine as the setting.  Irving wrote this in 1985, and it's a pithy character study of the eccentric Dr. Wilbur Larch, obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in St. Cloud's.  The orphanage is populated almost exclusively by babies left there after their mothers give birth.  Or, if they find Dr. Larch early in their pregnancy, he will provide an abortion.  He also trains one of the orphans, once he is grown, who doesn't seem to want to leave the orphanage.  The story is really about how complex our choices and our relationships can be, how hard it can be to find love in our lives, and how we have to be prepared to live with the consequences of our actions.  552 pages

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Olive Kitteridge is a 7^th grade math teacher in Crosby, Maine.  She is the cause of her son moving across the country and into therapy; she causes her pharmacist husband, Henry, to retreat into himself, and she drives an emotional bulldozer through the heart of her small town. She is a character in each of the thirteen inter-connected short stories in this book, which spans 30 years.  “Hell. We’re always alone. Born alone. Die alone,” she says. Even though she is only a peripheral character in some of the stories, she will be the character you never forget.

 

288 pages.