Customer Reviews

Road Shoes

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When newly married gardening magazine editor Laura Von Baden and her financier husband Thomas purchase 40 acres of ranch land in the Colorado Rockies, she believes they've staked a claim for their future, envisioning a landscaped homestead for generations rising out of the scabby, brown fields. But a flash flood of calamaties unleashed by the legal shenanigans of unscrupulous neighbors quickly erodes her dreams; exposing the gaping flaws she'd failed to notice in the man she thought she loved.

A wryly realized tale of deception and heartbreak, Darla Worden's Road Shoes follows Laura's journey of self-discovery buoyed by a supporting cast of eccentric characers including a crystal-gazing best friend, a brother who vacillates from cowboy to New Age drummer, and a Lakota spiritualist turned cop who teaches Laura a thing or two about the enduring land around her and the nature of love itself. Laura's reverence for the environemnt deepens as the child inside her grows, propelling her toward maturity and real, grownup love--the kind that, like the land itself, can never truly be owned.

Funny and bittersweet, Road Shoes is must reading for all returning-to-nature wannabees as well as the newly betrothed. I highly recommend it.

Road Shoes hooked me from the beginning. I like the way she introduces her chapters and the twists and turns of the plot. In this book, not everything is what it seems. Worden sets up the scenes well and truly develops her characters. Whether you love them or hate them (and trust me, some will engender strong emotions), you want to know what happens to them all. Her descriptions of Steamboat Springs, CO, are poetic in their beauty and paint a vivid picture of the landscape. I wasn't sure what to expect from Road Shoes but finished it with a satisfied tear in my eye. It's an impressive first novel. I look forward to her next work!

Road Shoes is a page-turner that you won't want to put down. Reading it took a serious toll on my slumber for two days, but it was worth the sleep deprivation. Ms. Worden has written Road Shoes with a wry sense of humor, exploring a woman's deepest yearnings and fears. Who hasn't tried to prop up a failing relationship with the hope that it will turn out all right in the end? Laura Von Baden's move from the city to "40 acres of cowpies" is a vivid, sometimes funny and often poignant metaphor for the journey that unearths her own dreams and longings. In confronting the truth about her marriage and facing her fears, she discovers true love and ultimately, her true self.

The idyll of escaping to the country to find happiness is nearly as old as literature itself. Rather than stultifying the senses with rural dreariness or encouraging Woody Allen bug phobias, the Greek, Romans, and Renaissance writers thought the country life stimulating and healthy. Milton's, "a happy rural seat of various view," come to mind.

But Milton, as we know, was blind.

Sometimes country life goes awry, as it does in Darla Worden's Road Shoes. Instead of marital harmony, Thomas and Laura Von Baden find that rural life rents their lives asunder. Weary of Denver's crowds and yearning to find a haven for growing flowers, Thomas and Laura purchase 40 acres of land in the Rockies. They are immediately confronted by disingenuous neighbors and the perils of verbal agreements. But these unpleasantries are small beer when compared to the state of the Von Baden's marriage, which seems to sink with every step of altitude they gain. Thomas, bit by bit, looses his grip on sanity. Laura seeks succor outside her marriage and becomes pregnant, father unknown.

There aren't many books about westerners escaping to the mountains. Often rural escape books are about easterners finding solace in places like Colorado. So Worden is on relatively new ground here. She does her job well, wielding a skillful and knowledgeable pen about how the rural west works. She also documents, with painful and moving detail, what it is like to have a partner lose their grip on reality and, as a result, have a union dissolve. She writes beautiful about flowers and how life folds and unfolds with their seasons. There a some really lovely passages on foliage and flowers in the book. "Road Shoes" is well worth the read.

Road Shoes hooked me from the beginning. I like the way she introduces her chapters and the twists and turns of the plot. In this book, not everything is what it seems. Worden sets up the scenes well and truly develops her vivid characters. Whether you love them or hate them (and trust me, some will engender strong emotions), you want to know what happens to them all. Her descriptions of Steamboat Springs, CO, are poetic in their beauty and paint a vivid picture of the landscape. I wasn't sure what to expect from Road Shoes but finished it with a satisfied tear in my eye. It's an impressive first novel. I look forward to her next work!

Road Shoes hooked me from the beginning. I like the way she introduces her chapters and the twists and turns of the plot. In this book, not everything is what it seems. Worden sets up the scenes well and truly develops her vivid characters. Whether you love them or hate them (and trust me, some will engender strong emotions), you want to know what happens to them all. Her descriptions of Steamboat Springs, CO, are poetic in their beauty and paint a vivid picture of the landscape. I wasn't sure what to expect from Road Shoes but finished it with a satisfied tear in my eye. It's an impressive first novel. I look forward to her next work!

Don't miss this lively and introspective look at a couples' changing relationship and a womans' journey to a fresh place in her life. This is no one-trick-pony of a novel. It has dimension and life, tension and mystery, heartbreak and romance. The female lead is an appealing, real woman who learns about herself and love and relationships in the beautiful Colorado landscape that the author draws very well. The colorful supporting characters are also really fun to get to know. This book is a terrific escape for any city dweller with a yearning to break free and live in the wild Rockies.