The house was yellow, a clapboard Cape Cod with a white picket fence and a big bay window on one side, and Ellen loved it with all her heart.  She loved the way the wind from the Gorge stirred the trees to constant motion outside the windows, the cozy arc of the dormers in the girls’ bedrooms, the cherry mantel with the cleanly carved dentil molding over the fireplace in the living room.  She had conceived children in that house, suffered a miscarriage in that house, brought her babies home there, argued with her husband there, made love, rejoiced, despaired, sipped tea, and gossiped and sobbed and counseled and blessed her friends there, walked the halls with sick children there, and scrubbed the worn brick of the kitchen floor there at least a thousand times on her hands and knees.  And it was because of all this history with the house, all the parts of her life unfolding there day after day for so many years, that Ellen decided to burn it down.

Ok, how could you pass up reading a book with a beginning paragraph like that! In House and Home by Kathleen McCleary, the protagonist, coffee shop owner Ellen Flanagan, cannot seem to grasp the fact that in three weeks she and her daughters have to move out of the house that has been their home for the last decade. Ellen has always been the person who plays by the rules, predictable and steadfast, so she is disappointed that her risk-taking husband Sam has yet again put her family in near financial ruin. Now separated, Ellen has had to put her beloved home up for sale, which has been bought by uptight ”keep up with the Jonses” Jordan and her quiet husband Jeffrey.

Ellen Flanagan is a character with complex emotions regarding her dwelling. For Ellen, she believes the actual brick and mortar of her house is what makes it her home and is compelled to do just about anything to keep Jordan and Jeffrey from making their own memories there. What Ellen doesn’t yet realize is what truly makes a house a home isn’t in the woodwork, but in her own heart.

House and Home is filled with well thought out characters and wonderfully descriptive language. I love how the author compairs Ellen with her soon to be ex:

Sam’s spontaneity and daring pulled her (Ellen) out of herself, gave her a respite from the constant sense of vigilance and responsibility that at times threatened to mummify her. And she, in turn, seemed to balance and steady him.

Or this passage:

She had held Sara (her daughter) night after night as she’d cried about the divorce and moving, and wiped her tears and snuggled her to sleep. She’d played endless games of dollhouse with Louisa (daughter), just as they’d always played it, with Mommy and Daddy and two baby dolls. She had arranged for all the repairs to the house so they could put it on the market, decommissioning the old oil tank, patching the rotten beam outside the back door, repairing the leak in the roof over the bay window. She had handled it all; she was a rock.

But what she really wanted was to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, a puddle on the floor, to be down, lower than down. For a long time, the thing that had kept her from dissolving into nothingness was the house, the tangible proof that she had created a home that meant something, that nurtured them all.

A few reviewers complained that the character of Ellen was too distraught over her house and came off as whiny (i.e. there are worse things in life than having to sell your home). I can see their point, but felt that the story itself made up for any annoying habits Ellen might have had. In particular, I loved the unpreditiblity of McCleary’s storyline. After a few well placed surprising turn of events, I still couldn’t quite figure out how the book was going to end and was ultimately pleasantly surprised.

In the end, I felt that House and Home was well worth my time.

Thank you TLC Book Tours for sending House and Home my way.