If you love Susan Mallery and Jill Shalvis, you won’t want to miss this new novel of second chances, dogs, and knitting, from the author of Pupcakes and Sit! Stay! Speak! Laid off, cheated on, mugged: what else can go wrong in Maeve Stephens’ life? So when she learns her birth mother has left her a house, a vintage VW Beetle, and a marauding cat, in the small town of Timber Creek, Washington, she … the small town of Timber Creek, Washington, she packs up to discover the truth about her past.
She arrives to the sight of a cheerful bulldog abandoned on her front porch, a reclusive but tempting author living next door, and a set of ready-made friends at the St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets, where women knit colorful sweaters for the dogs and cats in their care. But there’s also an undercurrent of something that doesn’t sit right with Maeve. What’s the secret (besides her!) that her mother had hidden?
If Maeve is going to make Timber Creek her home, she must figure out where she fits in and unravel the truth about her past. But is she ready to be adopted again—this time, by an entire town…?
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I was immediately enchanted! Lively and heartfelt, the characters — both human and four legged — in Annie England Noblin’s St Francis Society for Wayward Pets come alive. I adored it.
Feelgood fiction at its finest. Annie England Noblin has crafted an utterly entertaining tale of unexpected chances and small-town secrets, and it’s as sweet and comforting as a hand-knit sweater and a warm puppy in your lap.
Unusual style, I did not connect with the characters or the story line.
I saw the cover for this book and read the blurb and knew I had to read it. The plot is that Maeve is notified that her birth mother has died and she is asked to attend the funeral. She’d never met her birth mother. With all the rotten stuff that has just happened to her (lost job, cheating boyfriend, lost housing), she doesn’t know why she’s doing it, but she goes. She thinks she’ll slip in the back quietly and then leave in the same manner. That plan goes awry, because apparently she looks just like her birth mother. She seems to have inherited her birth mother’s friends…and her grumpy, obnoxious cat. No, that is not a cat on the cover. The dog did show up eventually (I had almost given up all hope!).
There are lots of other amazing characters in this book. There’s also what was a surprise ending for me. One of those where you think, “Oh, there was more going on here than I thought!”
I listened to the audiobook. The narration by Sarah Naughton was outstanding. I really enjoyed it.
This is one of those happy, feel good stories that are just uplifting to read. As others say, yes, it’s predictable, but it’s also happy. Mauve, adopted as an infant, never knew her birthmother. At a low point in her life, she receives a call indicating that her birthmother has died, and asking if she’d attend the funeral. She does, and thus begins an adventure of learning who she is. In the meantime, several pets come her way.
3.5 stars
This was a heart-wrenching story about a young woman giving her baby up for adoption. Actually, it was more about the baby who was now 36. When she saw a video (that went viral) of her boyfriend kissing another woman, that relationship ended pretty fast. Then she got laid off so she had to move back in with her parents. At this point, Maeve was feeling pretty sorry for herself so she added to her list of failures that she was adopted and her birth mother never wanted her. It’s understandable that she would feel that way, but her adoptive parents loved her deeply and she’d had a good life. Until recently. Because she believed her birth mother didn’t want her, she was surprised when the woman left her house to her. She had nothing else to do so she went to the funeral and checked out the house. That part didn’t happen until well into the book. Before that, we heard what a looser Maeve was – she was lazy, unorganized and didn’t care about anything but herself. Not only couldn’t I connect with Maeve but I really didn’t like her. I enjoyed the story more once Maeve decided to stay in the town.
There were flashbacks to Maeve’s birth mother’s youth – just before and during the time Maeve was conceived, that explained why she needed to give up her baby. This story was not what I expected. The title was misleading. The ladies of St. Francis were a knitting club. Yes, they knitted coats for pets but that wasn’t all they did. A great bunch of ladies. There was lots of drama and a little romance in this book. Who would I recommend it to? Older, mature readers. Younger readers would not get a lot of it.
Noblin’s masterful touch hits the sweet spot of humor and tragedy in this heartfelt book.
Favorite Quotes:
Your kids ought to be on a birth control commercial or something… I’m pretty sure their high-pitched shrieks would be enough for anybody to beg for the pill.
I made a big production of rummaging around in my purse before Holly sighed and handed over her platinum card… “Well, it wasn’t like that dude was going to accept the hairy Tic Tacs in the bottom of that gross purse of yours…”
The man standing before wasn’t ugly or anything-he was just… odd looking. With his curly red hair and smattering of freckles combined with his crisp black suit, he looked a bit like how I imagined Carrot Top would have looked if he’d picked a nine-to-five job instead of steroid use.
Well, her father is about fifteen pounds of crazy in a five-pound bucket.
My Review:
I adore this author and always enjoy and revel in her emotive and heart-squeezing tales, clever wit, engaging storylines, and insightful observations of complex social issues. Annie England Noblin is a master storyteller and St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets deftly tackled a variety of thorny and unfortunately all too common situations and did so with agility, thoughtful awareness, and profound sensitivity for such complicated issues as family violence, addiction, adoption and identify issues, teenage pregnancy, poverty, physical disability, and small-town living. The characters were curiously compelling, quirky, well fleshed out, and highly accessible though not always likable. The well-crafted storylines were easy to follow, thoughtfully written, unpredictable, and squeezed my heart between giggle-snorts and smirks with the various threads miraculously came together to form an uplifting and highly satisfying conclusion. I am already eager to see what Ms. Noblin comes up with next.
Don’t let the dog on the front cover fool you.
St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets tells the story of a woman who hits the wall of loss at an alarming speed. She loses her job, her boyfriend and then her birth mother (who she’s never known) all at the same time. Not to mention she also gets robbed. When she (Maeve, her name is Maeve) heads to the small town of Timber Creek to accept her inheritance of a small house her mother has left her, she starts to unravel the story behind her birth mother, and the reasons of her adoption. There are friends, neighbors, dogs, cats and knitting needles all entangled in this story helping Maeve face this major turning point in her life and answer the questions she’s longed to have answered.
What a story. This (in my opinion) is a coming of age story for a lady who needed to come of age long ago, but life just wouldn’t go her way. Sounds like most people I know. There is some mystery type twists and turns, a little romance, and a little humor along with some difficult topics such as adoption, domestic violence and grief. The band of characters in Timber Creek were wonderful and just the kind of people you want to live around yourself, and I found myself consumed by this story and had a hard time putting it down. There is no better way to read about starting over and finding yourself than a book based in a small town with memorable characters and pets. It has pets. Did I mention the pets? Yes, that dog on the cover. Don’t let it fool you, the book is not centered around animals, but it does have them included. Once you read the book you will understand the novelty of the wayward pets (or at least you should). I truly enjoyed this heartwarming read. I hope to read more about this wonderful little town and the people who reside there.
I really liked the story line and the character development. The town of Timber Creek, the setting for most of the story, and the townspeople seems a character on its own. This book was able to present a lot of social issues within the context of Maeve and Annabelle’s relationship/s without becoming to heavy handed. Although there were a lot of hanging plot lines that I hope the final draft can address fully. I’m hoping there will be more written about the St. Francis Society and the town of Timber Creek.