Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny by Caroline Woodward

Posted by Linda Fiction Sunday, September 12th, 2010

I am returning to my Peace River roots with this novel, which is a retelling of The Odyssey and my own tribute to hardworking ranch and farm couples who work as a team and endure the vagaries of the climate, the markets and the romance-corroding strain of financial hardship.

My Penelope and Ulysses are Penny and Wade, she the inventive, loyal and resolute ranch wife and substitute teacher and he, a good man adrift behind the wheel of his short and long haul trucking business. Their lives have been blighted by Wade’s father, an unhappy, self-centred man who has left them to cope with unexpected debts upon his unlamented death.
Their lives become a struggle to hold onto the land and to each other as Penny fends off covetous neighbours and unsavoury suitors while Wade contends with untrustworthy and false friends while he drives a cargo of Peace River honey, Yukon Gold potatoes, smoked salmon and Creston Valley apples on his last long haul drive of the season.

The novel is also an examination of the lingering effects of World War One on 3 generations of a family and the great succor of a community when a family is in dire straits.

Praise for Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny

~ Woodward is a gifted storyteller who draws deeply from her country roots to give us bang-on characters and a compelling story. You can’t help liking Penny and Wade. They are people you’d want to have for neighbours. People who deserve to make a go of it. The kind of people you’d gladly lend a hand to. ~ Bob Collins, Country Life in BC

~ Think of the epic poem, the Odyssey, following the adventures of a Greek hero returning from the Trojan War to his faithful wife who fends off the attentions of persistent suitors and works on a weaving project while she waits. Now think of a long-distance trucker travelling the province with his cargo of honey, smoked fish and potatoes, coping with mechanical problems and an encounter with a motorcycle gang, making his way home to his wife who is running the family farm and trying to finish a quilt while worrying about finances. The great pleasure of Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny is how that ancient story animates and suffuses Woodward’s modern version while allowing for digressions and quirky twists of plot and fate. ~ Theresa Kishkan, Harbour Spiel

Read an INTERVIEW with Caroline Woodward about Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny

[tags]fiction, novel, Canadian, mythic, contemporary, rural, heroic[/tags]

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