Pie Town

I know that title piqued your interest, because who doesn't love a good pie?  I stayed up until the wee hours this morning finishing the book Pie Town by Lynne Hinton.  How marvelous it was.  In Pie Town, not a slice of pie can be found (the bakers sold the restaurant and left town; now there are only brownies on the menu for dessert).  This is a small town where people have so much trouble agreeing on anything that they had to return the stimulus funds to the government because they couldn't decide on which streets to fix with the money.  The only thing that brings everyone together is a boy in a wheelchair with a bright spirit and enough faith to save them all, or at least point them in the right direction.  Alex is a charmer.

Alex was born with spina bifida and was raised by his grandparents, Roger and Malene, after his mother ran off.

"Alex was the light of more than one person's world. And between Malene and Roger, and with Oris and his neighbors, the nurses who worked with Malene and the officers who worked with Roger, the priest and people from church, Alex was parented and grandparented and loved and watched over by everybody in the little town. He was the child the entire village raised. He was the soul of Pie Town."

He and Roger love to banter.

"Hey, Sheriff," the boy said, his voice sounding soft and weak. "You coming to take me in?"
Roger smiled. "That depends. Have you broken the law?"
"I stole Grandma's heart," he replied.
"Well, that may require jail time, trooper."

Into this pie-less town come a new priest and a lost girl he found hitchhiking.  He's not happy that his arrival in town is with a young woman in his car, fearing that his reputation will be tarnished.  Alex feels an instant bond with both of them.  Both Father George and Trina have pasts they are running from, and Pie Town isn't nearly as welcoming as its name sounds.

There are interesting outcomes all around by the time the final pages of the book are read (there may even be some pie in Pie Town's future), and it was a true joy of a book to read.