Two Roads Home by Deborah Raney is the second in her Chicory Inn series (the first was Home to Chicory Lane, reviewed last year). The series focuses on the Whitman family: empty nesters Grant and Audrey, who have turned their home into a bed and breakfast, and their four grown children and their families.

This second book focuses on oldest daughter Corinne, though all of the family is in the book. Corinne is married to Jesse, who has a good, well-paying job which allows her to comfortably stay home with their three daughters in a nice, big house. Jesse is very good-looking and very outgoing, and they’ve had talks about how sometimes women see his interactions as flirtations when he hasn’t meant them that way.

But on a business trip with a female colleague, it finally happens. He hasn’t led her on or flirted intentionally, but she acts towards him in ways that make him feel uncomfortable. When he confronts her and tells her that he is not interested and he is happily married, she turns the tables on him and files a a complaint with their boss against him for sexual harassment.

As Jesse and Corrine deal with the implications of this, several odd things begin to happen that make them realize that more than just Jesse’s job is under threat.

Part of the book reads like a mystery, but the part I liked best was the realistic interactions between family members. Though they all love God, they have misunderstandings or occasionally rub each other the wrong way, like we all do. Audrey wants to be the “quintessential grandmother,” but she feels her children don’t understand that running the inn is the equivalent of a full-time job. Two of the sisters’ housing situations is changing, one moving up and one moving down, and there are very human feelings portrayed there. Sometimes the siblings are too sensitive, sometimes not sensitive enough. I felt that their trying to work through these things in the best way was genuinely portrayed.

All in all it was a good read, and I am looking forward to the next in the series.

Genre: Christian fiction
Potential objectionable elements: The physical side of Jesse’s and Corinne’s marriage is mentioned a few times, but there is nothing explicit and no “steamy” scenes.
My rating: 9 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carole’s Books You Loved)

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