Chicken Scratch

A received a free electronic copy of this excellent novel from the author Becki Willis. Thank you for sharing your hard work with me. I have read Chicken Scratch of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Newly widowed Madison Reynolds is attempting to come back home to the Sisters, a couple of little Texas towns in the Brazos valley established in the early 1900s and named for the daughters of cotton plantation owner Bertrum Randolph, Naomi, and Juliet. Becki Willis has written several novels involved in The Sisters communities, and this one is a doozie. Jobs are hard to come by all over, and Madison is attempting to fit into the local economic layout with a temporary services business. She has mild success - these communities together are only sheltering about 2,000 souls - but Madison will only be able to make a living with temporary, fill-in jobs if she is willing to work for the many commercial chicken broiler farms, now the main source of income for the residents of The Sisters. Very smelly, very nasty business, but she is willing to give it a try. And as she walks the chicken houses the first day of Ronnie Gleason's anticipated absence, she finds her chicken farmer dead in the chicken house. Not an easy way to die... She loves being back with her Granny, who raised her, and her best friend Genesis is another draw to making ago of it in The Sisters though her teen-aged children want desperately to return to life in Dallas. Unfortunately, her deceased husband blew their money gambling and was so deeply in debt that she had to sell everything - home and cars and jewelry - just to break even. Making a living for the three of them in Dallas would be nearly impossible. At least here they have a roof over their heads. And of course, Madison already knows nearly everyone in town.