This was charming little novel. The story of young woman from a tragic family, attempting to restart a life for herself in a small town. The character development is wonderful. Thoughtful, quick read.

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FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Tamara Johanssen is pushing thirty and life has taken an unplanned turn: her successful sister, her only living relative, has banished her from Manhatten to the rural crossroads of Dustin in upstate New York. Put under the watch of an attractive, married attorney, Tamara soon finds love and other salvations." "Buoyed by her romantic affair and her sister's pocketbook, Tamara gains the confidence to establish a modest art gallery that both engages her gifts and enriches her meager surroundings. When she was seventeen, Tamara was orphaned in a shocking way and controlled by a predatory teacher. In Dustin, her liberation from trauma and bad love - and Lucia Nevai's warm and hilarious first novel - begins. Population thirty-nine, the hamlet of Dustin is small in size but large in personalities, including Donna and Iris of the womanart factory, specializing in strawberry pot holders; southern transplant Glorine, whose mere voice serves as an antidepressant to Tamara; and Shirley Girt of Girt Real Estate, who calls Dustin "the up-and-coming arts town."" Tamara cautiously engages with the hamlet's oddballs and eccentrics, eventually learning important personal lessons from their determination, humor, vitality, and heartbreak. These unlikely relationships give her the strength to make peace with her tragic past - and to finally "stay put" in her present.

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