Over Yonder by Sean Dietrich

 

My thoughts

I read Kinfolk by this author and loved it. This one is even better, in my humble opinion. What this author brings out is such a story. It touches you in many ways. Leaves you breathless. This story captured my heart in so many ways and gave me ALL the feels of a great novel. I laughed, cried, cringes, got angry, and oh my when the ending came I wept. This book is so good. I highly recommend it to everyone.

I listened to the audio while reading. Sean Dietrich narrated it and he did a fantastic job. Of course it's his book so why wouldn't he right. He captured my heart in so many ways. Kept me turning the pages. 

You meet Woody when he leaves prison. He has been there for ten years. You don't know immediately why he was there but you do know he was a priest. I adored Woody. I felt he was a great main character. He finds out he has a daughter by his first wife. His daughter, Caroline, is pregnant. Her boyfriend, Tater, was a hoot. He made me laugh so hard. They were not a matched pair by any means. You also meet Woody's dad. Woody is sixty and his dad is in his eighties. Caroline is only seventeen. Woody had another daughter, Rachel. Rachel was born while Woody was in prison and her mother is Woody's second ex-wife, Elizabeth. I loved all of these characters.

This book takes you on a wild ride from Alabama to Tennessee and back to Alabama. Bad people are after Caroline as her, Woody and Woody's dad. They think Caroline has something that belongs to them. Actually him. One guy who is bent of getting back what is his at any cost. 

The descriptions in this book were so good. I live in N. AL and could easily picture where he was taking about. Especially the Epilogue as the setting there is Huntsville, AL and that is where I was born and grew up. Still live actually, just out in the countryside. 

I highly encourage you to grab this book. If you love good southern novels with settings that will keep you wanting more this one is it. I will read anything this author writes now. He is definitely in my top ten favorites. 

Thank you @thomasnelsonfiction, @thomasnelsonandzondervanfictionaudio, for this ARC.

Five stars 

About

With the same dry humor and compassion for his characters as Fredrik Backman, Sean Dietrich's latest novel highlights the good of humanity and the light that's always just around the corner.

Ex-con Woody Barker lives on a houseboat (the Ship Happens) off the Gulf Coast and spends his days bickering/flirting with his ex-wife and attending doctor appointments about his malfunctioning ticker. He's already survived several heart attacks and is debating the merits of quitting smoking so he can get on the organ donor waitlist. But he gets the surprise of a lifetime when an old girlfriend reveals on her deathbed that Woody has a seventeen-year-old daughter he never knew, Caroline.

Caroline is pregnant and trapped in an endless loop of bad choices. Her good-for-nothing boyfriend, "Tater," is the only "reliable" person in her life. But when her estranged dying mother begs her to go back to her singlewide trailer to dig up the bathroom vanity subfloor to "get something that needs to be gone yesterday," Caroline finds herself at the center of a very dangerous plot that--if she survives--has the potential to turn her world upside down in a positive and seismic way.

While Woody and Caroline don't know or trust each other yet, they instinctively know they can't (and don't want to) go through the world alone any longer.

Beloved Southern writer Sean Dietrich, also known as Sean of the South, once again brings people and places to life in this lyrical song-turned-story about found family, second chances, and the poignant power of love and forgiveness.