Spare Change by Bette Lee Crosby

I begin work today on a short novel by Bette Lee Crosby who was nice enough to gift a copy to me. I am anxious to read this novel now that I have some breathing room and read what I want read and not what almost feels like required reading. The other reason I'm most excited to read this novel is that I have a few friends who have reviewed it and have insisted that it's a great read. The novel takes place in the past so that's one plus already. I love historical fiction. Being able to see what's changed and what hasn't changed is essential to growth. How have our ideals as a society changed? Our families? Or even the physical things that define our culture is always so interesting. I love seeing progression and the lack of progression. Enough about me... Let's Read!

Synopsis: Olivia Westerly knows what she knows — opals mean disaster, eleven is the unluckiest number on earth and children weigh a woman down like a pocketful of stones. That’s why she’s avoided marriage for almost forty years. But when Charlie Doyle happened along, he was simply too wonderful to resist. Now she’s a widow with an eleven-year-old boy claiming to be her grandson.


Spare Change is a quirky mix of Southern flair, serious thoughts about the important things in life, the madcap adventures of a young boy and a late change of heart that makes all the difference in an unusually independent woman.

With a foul mouth, dark secrets and heavily guarded emotions, Ethan Allen Doyle is not an easy child to like. He was counting on the grandpa he’d never met for a place to hide, but now that plan is shot to blazes because the grandpa’s dead too. He’s got seven dollars and twenty-six cents, his mama’s will for staying alive, and Dog. But none of those things are gonna help if Scooter Cobb finds him.