Friday Book Whimsy: More Things in Heaven and Earth: A Novel of Watervalley

I love Jan Karon’s Mitford series. The stories are simple; the characters are quirky and loveable; the town of Mitford is the place where we all want to live, let’s face it. Sometimes that’s all we want in a book.

I read so much, and I love most kinds of books from women’s literature to mysteries to period pieces. And sometimes I just want to read something that doesn’t really make me think too hard and leaves me feeling good. That’s why I like the Mitford books. And that’s why I enjoyed More Things in Heaven and Earth, the first in a new series by Jeff High. It is his first novel.

The story takes place in a fictional small town in rural Tennessee. The main character is a young, newly-practicing medical doctor who is assigned to the little town of Watervalley as part of a program that will help him pay off his medical school debt. He is alone in the world, as his parents were killed in a car accident when he was young and his beloved aunt who cared for him recently died. He lived his life in cities, and has no real desire to live in a small town. This book is the story of his adjustment to small-town life.

It is hard for me to imagine that the author is not modeling the book after Karon’s successful Mitford series. The town’s residents are introduced to us one by one, and could move from Watervalley, Tennessee, to Mitford, North Carolina, without a backward glance. Still, while they are equally quirky, they each have their own unique characteristics as well. His housekeeper could be a caricature bossy African-American woman, except that he makes her a highly intelligent person who surprises him with the depth of her knowledge. The sheriff isn't a goofy, overweight boar, but is a nice man who is deeply sentimental.

The author has a medical background himself. He is a registered nurse who currently works in a hospital in the small Tennessee town in which he grew up, after having lived in Nashville for many years. So the man knows about what he writes.

The book definitely has some first-bookitis, but if you allow for that, I think you will find it an enjoyable read. It will definitely be a series, as he has set the stage for a developing romance and one can almost predict what kinds of stories will transpire in the next books.

If you enjoy reading about small-town southern life, are a sucker for the Mitford books, and are looking for a change of pace from deep, dark literature, I think you will enjoy More Things in Heaven and Earth.