Sex, Lies and Sensibility

Finished July 17

Sex, Lies and Sensibility by Nikki Payne

I ordered this book because I loved her earlier book Pride and Protest so much. This one didn't flow as well as that did and there were some minor editing issues. Payne is a good writer, and I will definitely read more from her. 

Nora was an excellent track and field athlete, competing and winning at the college level, until she did a very stupid thing and allowed her boyfriend to make a sex tape of them. Her father was angry at her after that, and she'd got a job to support herself. She'd lost her track scholarship, and didn't finish college. She also took refuge in watching HGTV endlessly to avoid fixing her own life. 

Now her father has died and she has arrived at his funeral. As she is ushered to a private room, she discovers that her mother was her father's mistress, and that he had a wife and stepdaughter. She, Shenora, and her sister Mary-Anne (Yanne) and their mother Diane don't have ownership to their home or any of her father's other assets. What they have been left in the will is a unmaintained house and property in Maine called Barton Cove. The property is in foreclosure and the full outstanding loan is required to be repaid by Labor Day of the next year. If they can pay off the amount due in time, they get access to an Estate Improvement fund in the seven figure range. 

Yanne and Nora decide to take on the estate and find unexpected partners in a native run tour group who is headed up by Ennis Freeman (Bear). As Nora puts her HGTV learned skills to work with the help of Bear's local contacts and Yanne expands her baking repertoire, the two find themselves becoming part of the community, and learning about local environmental issues and other politics. 

I liked the bringing together of two racial groups here, the black women and the indigenous community. I also enjoyed that Bear knows of Nora for her athletic prowess, not the embarrassing video and values her in ways she hadn't expected. 

This is a loose retelling of Sense and Sensibility, but brings in modern day issues and realistic plotlines. A fun read.