The Crossroads Cafe [Kindle Edition]

Deborah Smith (Author)

Book Description

A Hollywood actress known for her beauty flees to a secluded mountain cabin in North Carolina after being severely scarred in a car accident. There she finds unexpected love and a new life with a man who lost his family in 9-11.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Two damaged people find love and redemption in bestseller Smith's latest, a heavy-on-the-syrup romance that drafts 9/11 into sentimental service. Cathy Deen is Hollywood's "it girl" until a paparazzi car chase ends in a car fire that horrifically scars Cathy, ending her glamorous life. News of the accident soon reaches her hometown in the mountains of North Carolina, where Cathy's cousin, Crossroads Café proprietress Delta Whittlespoon, sees the news on CNN and resolves to get in touch with Cathy. She enlists the help of Thomas Mitternich, a new addition to the Crossroads community who appeared in town four years ago to drink himself through the grief of losing his wife and son in 9/11. Thomas, using his New York contacts, helps Delta get through to Cathy, and after phone calls from Thomas and overnighted boxes of Delta's biscuits, Cathy returns to her ancestral home, where she falls in love with Thomas as they both try to rebuild their lives. Smith's prose does little to enliven a boilerplate plot, and 9/11 amounts to little more than an easy way to heap suffering on a character. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Cathy is on top of the world--beautiful, rich, a top movie star about to launch a new career as a cosmetics queen--when an unscrupulous photographer in search of a story causes her car to crash and burn, destroying her perfect body as well as her career and sending her scurrying for a place to hide her scars. Thomas, on the other hand, is still mourning the deaths of his wife and young son in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and is slowly drinking himself to death while sleeping in the bed of his truck in an isolated hamlet in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains. Together, however, they find they are stronger and better people, and they begin to take an active interest in the mountain community that has taken them both into their hearts, and into their kitchens. Once again, Smith has created an unforgettably poignant story in the best tradition of contemporary southern romantic women's fiction. Lynne Welch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 1135 KB
• Print Length: 385 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0976876051
• Publisher: BelleBooks (August 1, 2006)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00280859I
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns
  • #1 in Books > Romance > Western
  • #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Romance > Westerns

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

288 of 296 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hooked from the first line. January 12, 2007

By Carol Burnside

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Seriously. That first line:

Before the accident, I never had to seduce a man in the dark.

was intriguing enough to keep me reading for some time.

First of all, what accident?

Who is she?

Why is she seducing someone?

Who is he?

Why does she HAVE to seduce him in the dark?

Was the accident THAT bad?

The other reviews here tell you about the plot. I'm here to tell you that the writing is wonderful.

I came across Ms. Smith's first posted excerpt on the Belle Books website (bellebooks dot com)and could not stop reading. At that time she'd only posted one or two chapters. Each month I came back looking for a little more on Cathryn and Thomas. I wanted to know the why's and when's and how's of their story. The odds of their inevitable coming together (given the first line) were gi-normous. Yet, in weaving their stories together, Smith makes you believe that these two very damaged people can not only help each other, but are the ONLY ones who can help each other heal.

Perhaps I should confess that before reading an excerpt of The Crossroads Cafe, I'd never read anything by Deborah Smith (How did I NOT know about her???) By the time this book hit the store shelves, I'd purchased and read another of her books. I liked it well-enough, but wasn't bowled over. That made me apprehensive. Could she keep my interest in TCC?

She did. Not only was the plot intriguing, but the wildly eclectic cast of characters were richly drawn and multi-faceted. This rich characterization didn't stop at Thomas and Cathryn, but extended to Delta, who runs the cafe, and her husband Pike. It extended from the sideline characters of young Cora and Ivy, to the lesbian couple Macy and Alberta and their motley collection of abused women. Each character had purpose and helped move the story along. Even the Southern setting became an integral part of the story without long passages of description and brought a deeper understanding to the characters.

If you don't like emotional reads, fascinating characters, gripping prose and books with enough southern flavor you swear you can taste the grits and sweet tea, just ignore this post. But if you do, the Crossroads Cafe may very well become one of those books you keep, re-read, and hug to your memory with an affection usually reserved for long-time, cherished friends.

80 of 86 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars wow! December 28, 2009

By M. Cotto

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Im not particularly good with writing reviews but I just had to write something. I read this book in 2 days and it has been one of he best books ive ever read. I went through many emotions reading this book, laughing on one page, crying on the next. I have recommended this book to everyone i know and i just know it will touch their heart as it did mine. If biscuits are food for the soul through your stomach...this is food for the soul through your eyes. Beautiful.

65 of 71 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Started slow but... January 4, 2010

By E. C.

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I enjoyed it. I do not like books written in the first person. But I enjoyed this one and it is written in 2 first persons. (It switches viewpoint with each chapter.) This story is about 2 people who have a hard time and how they overcome it. Crossroads characters are bunch of oddballs...reminds of the old show Northern Exposure. Yes that shows my age!! lol Get this book you will enjoy it.

More About the Author

Bell Bridge Books
Hey!

See my brand-new book THE BISCUIT WITCH right here:

http://www.amazon.com/Biscuit-Crossroads-Novella-MacBrides-ebook/dp/B00CJD3U1W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367446306&sr=8-1&keywords=the+biscuit+witches


Deborah Smith is the NYT and WSJ bestselling author of A PLACE TO CALL HOME, THE CROSSROADS CAFE, and many other novels. She's also a founding partner and VP of BelleBooks and its main division, Bell Bridge Books. Check here for news and updates on the titles she and her partners are publishing.

Deb writes almost exclusively about romance, family drama and "other," and many of her settings are the Appalachian mountain communities of Georgia and North Carolina. Her family heritage is based in those areas and, like many legacies of Appalachian kinfolk, is a mixture of Scots-Irish, Scots, Irish, English, Welsh and Native American, primarily Cherokee and Creek Indian. Her mother's family, the Powers, came from Donegal, Ireland in the late 1700s and by the early 1800s had settled in the wilderness near what would become known as Atlanta. The Powers were a founding family of Cobb County, Georgia, and ran a ferry on the Chattahoochee River. "Powers Ferry" continues to be a well-known place name in that community. Deb's mother, Dora Lee Powers Brown, grew up playing in cornfields on the banks of the river where apartment complexes, office buildings and restaurants now stand. (Precisely: Rays on the River, a popular restaurant in the Atlanta suburbs, is located where one of those cornfields existed.) She recalled playing in the remnants of Civil War trenches as a child, and, in the years before Buford Dam leashed the river, sitting with her brothers and sisters on the one-lane bridge at Powers Ferry where, during floods, the river rose so high that she and her siblings could dip their feet in it.

Asheville, North Carolina, is a favorite setting for Deborah's books. She fell in love with the city during visits to the local rivers (for rafting) in the early 1980s. Many many visits later, she and Hank consider the city and its amazing mountain region their home away from home. The Biltmore Estate inspired the mansion in BLUE WILLOW, the Cherokee and gem mining history inspired SILK AND STONE, and THE CROSSROADS CAFE resulted from a wandering day trip in the highlands above Asheville, where Deb, her mother and their friend Ceil Garrison discovered the best homecooking ever! at a tiny diner at an isolated crossroads near the Tennessee line.

With THE BISCUIT WITCH Deb returns to the world of the Crossroads cove and expands that world to include the abandoned "bicycle village" of Free Wheeler and (in THE PICKLE QUEEN) the tragic Little Finn River valley and its heartbreaking history. Fingers crossed: the three MacBride novellas will, hopefully, segue into a novel or novellas about the Little Finn story.

Now available: The Biscuit Witch, Deborah Smith's new novella, Book One of the MacBrides, A Crossroads Cafe Novella

Look for the other two novellas, coming Summer and Fall 2013
The Pickle Queen, Book 2 of the MacBrides
The Kitchen Charmer,, Book 3 of the MacBrides

See photos for covers from Deb's books and also others pubbed by Bell Bridge. The dogs are Bebe and Peaches, aka "Trouble" and "more Trouble." Cat pix of Deb and her husband Hank's six rescues to come asap.

Deb is happy to blog about Bell Bridge, her novels, and the publishing world in general. Contact her at [e-mail]. Review copies (ebook only) are available for all titles. Check out the Biscuit Witch review file at NetGalley.com. Deb welcomes honest, fair reviews whether good or bad.

Many of Deb's current and older titles are now also available in unabridged audiobooks here at Amazon and at iTunes also Audible.com. Check out Deb's fantasy romance, ALICE AT HEART, because Deb narrated that audio herself (hey, at least it's unique...)

Author Lisa Scott (The Willowdale Romances from Bell Bridge) is also a voice actor. See her audio narration for Melissa Ford's LIFE FROM SCRATCH.


Coming Spring 2014, Shepherds Moon

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#21 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#35 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance

#39 in Books > Romance

#75 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction

#85 in Kindle eBooks

#21 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#35 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance

#39 in Books > Romance

#75 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction

#85 in Kindle eBooks