Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2008
Frances Foster Books
PB: 978-1-2500-6280-2
Ages 8-12

Greetings from Nowhere

Available in paperback and ebook

Aggie isn’t expecting visitors at the Sleepy Time Motel in the Great Smoky Mountains. Since her husband died, she is all alone with her cat, Ugly, and keeping up with the bills and repairs has become next to impossible. The pool is empty, the garden is overgrown, and not a soul has come to stay in nearly three months. When she reluctantly places a For Sale ad in the newspaper, Aggie doesn’t know that Kirby and his mom will need a room when their breaks down on the way to Kirby’s new reform school. Or that Loretta and her parents will arrive in her dad’s plumbing company van on a trip meant to honor the memory of Loretta’s birth mother. Or that Clyde Dover will answer the For Sale ad in such a hurry and move in with his daughter, Willow, looking for a brand-new life to replace the one that was fractured when Willow’s mom left. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that Aggie and her guests find just the friend they need at the shabby motel in the middle of nowhere.

Signed books are available from Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, NC.

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Awards and Distinctions

State Awards

Parents' Choice Silver Award

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
The lives of four families change when they intersect at a run-down motel in the middle of nowhere. For years, Aggie and her late husband operated the Sleepy Time Motel in the Great Smoky Mountains. Alone now and facing a drawer of unpaid bills and endless repairs on the dilapidated motel, Aggie reluctantly puts a “For Sale” ad in the paper. Eager for a new life since his wife left, Clyde makes an offer on the motel and uproots his lonely daughter Willow to the Sleepy Time. A troubled kid, Kirby, and his mom are en route to a special boys’ school when their car breaks down and they show up at the motel. Filled with questions about her birth mother who has recently died, Loretta and her adoptive parents arrive at the Sleepy Time on a family vacation. As these unlikely folks come together in Aggie’s tumbledown motel, they find something they need through the friendships that form.
School Library Journal
School Library Journal
O’Connor’s knack for well-developed characters and feisty protagonists is evident, as is her signature Southern charm.
Booklist
Booklist
The plainspoken text is clean, direct, and honest in its portrayal of pain and hope. Another satisfying novel with a southern setting and original characters from the author of Moonpie and Ivy (2001) and Taking Care of Moses (2004).

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