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    Hens and Chickens (Book 1 in the Sovereign Series)
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    Hens and Chickens (Book 1 in the Sovereign Series)
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    Hens and Chickens (Book 1 in the Sovereign Series)
    Ebook358 pages5 hours

    Hens and Chickens (Book 1 in the Sovereign Series)

    By Jennifer Wixson

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Two women downsized by corporate America move to Maine to raise chickens & sell organic eggs, & discover more than they bargained -- including love! A gentle-read romance, "Hens & Chickens" is the first book in the four-novel Sovereign Series, by Maine farmer, author & itinerant Quaker minister Jennifer Wixson. Book 2, "Peas, Beans & Corn," was published June 2013, and Book 3 is due in July 2014.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJennifer Wixson
    Release dateFeb 15, 2013
    ISBN9780963668974
    Unavailable
    Hens and Chickens (Book 1 in the Sovereign Series)
    Author

    Jennifer Wixson

    Maine farmer, author and itinerant Quaker minister, Jennifer Wixson writes from her home in Troy, Maine, where she and her husband (fondly known as the Cranberry Man) raise Scottish Highland cattle and keep bees. A Maine native, Jennifer was educated at the School of Hard Knocks, and also admits to a Master's degree in Divinity from Bangor Theological Seminary.

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    Reviews for Hens and Chickens (Book 1 in the Sovereign Series)

    3/5

    28 ratings16 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Hens and Chickens by Jennifer WixsonI thoroughly enjoyed reading this story. It's a familiar fantasy; escaping from the rat race, moving to a small town in Maine and starting an egg farm. Two coworkers, who are also best friends make this move after the older woman is fired from her job. Her younger coworker leaves the job in support of her. Through an online acquaintance they decide to check out a farm for sale in rural Maine.They fall in love with the town and with the people they meet there. And of course the town falls in love with them. Some of the characters a little too good to be true but isn't that the way of it in an idyllic tale? And that didn't affect my enjoyment in reading about them. There are trials and tribulations of course but the main theme is one of support, friendship and love.This is a charming little tale and told quite delightfully. If you want a light, easy, comfy read you might just give it a try.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to like it. I adore gentle country stories. This one, though, didn't do it for me. Too cutesy philosophical. Not enough "story". I'm sorry to say so, but it was a bit of a slog to get through.
    • 1/5
      I really wanted to like this book - I do so enjoy series about towns with interesting characters and amusing storylines. I had hoped for another lovely read like the Jan Karon books, or something more comical like the Lumby series. Unfortunately there are some things about this that I just can't get past.For one, the narrator breaks in at the worst (for me) moments, and spends pages talking philosophically about life - which ... why do I care what they think about life? I want to hear from the characters! We're given no reason to need or want to know what the narrator thinks. Who is this person talking at me? It breaks up the flow of the story and yanks me out of the book right when I'm wanting more than ever to be lost in the book! It's an easy trick way of putting in exposition without having to think about how to have your characters deal with it. But it breaks the flow and it's information that I have no idea what to do with - why am I being told this stuff? I'd say "read on and just wait and see" except it keeps happening and no real reason is ever revealed.Another issue is the ever so convenient happenings in the book. Inheritances, low prices on houses, nobody's chickens arrive sick or dead, no eggs are bad, etc. It just felt too much like the author was deliberately making things WAY too easy for her characters. I'd have enjoyed the book a lot more if the characters had had to work for what they got, instead of having everything handed to them or when tense situations were resolved via deus ex machina. Plus, we never actually see the main female character WORK. We're told about how much work she does, she's described as ever so busy and tired, but we see her gather eggs once when we're already two thirds of the way through the book. One gathering, one work session, one painting session, bam! Busiest woman around! Except, no. We don't ever SEE it. We see her partner working ALL the time. We see secondary characters working. Her boyfriend works all day every day.Then there's the author/narrator's habit of calling the readers all sorts of cutesy names, very off-putting for me. I want story, not cutesy! And the ever-repeated drawn out words trying to show us how people talk - "Oooooooooooooooo!" and "Nooooooooooooo!" etc - it's getting to be as bad as Barbara Cartland. Every time the main character squeals or tinkling giggles or titters or etc again, I roll my eyes.I was hoping that the last third of the book would redeem itself, but the ever-so-obvious seeeeecret of one character, which is supposedly seeeeecret, was writ large upon the sky for everyone to see - except no one saw it. I want to do is yell at the author: TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE CHICKENS AND LESS ABOUT PEOPLE'S Seeeeecrets! And then the religion crept in, felt very awkward and out of place.I had SUCH high hopes. Darrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlings. Such high hopes. Such eggspectations. My little pips. My peeps. My little chickies. My .... yeah, the cutesy names are annoying. Dashed high hopes, dashed.
    • 3/5
      Fun book to read...little too preachy and slow...but glad i read it!
    • 4/5
      Hens and Chickens is a great story about love in a small New England town. After leaving her corporate job in Boston, Lila decided that she needed to get back to her roots and move to a tiny town to become an organic egg farmer. While starting and exploring her new life she finds love. But before she can truly accept this love she must heal the pain from her childhood. Being an egg farmer in a "one-horse town" is the best therapy! There are a few slower parts of the book but overall it was a fun read. If you like reading about love and small towns, this is the book for you!
    • 4/5
      I received the third book in the Sovereign series as an Early Reviewers book, but I decided that I really needed to read the first two books first. This is the first one. It is a quaint love story in the fictional town of Sovereign, Maine, complete with interesting characters and a philosophical minister. The action was fairly predictable, but it was an enjoyable read. I like the minister's reflections sprinkled throughout the book - it makes the book different from many books of the same type. I enjoyed all of the characters, and while everything was a bit innocent and too-good-to-be-true at times, the book is still a nice diversion in a hectic life. The only thing that really bothered me, oddly enough, was the overuse of capital letters in conversations!
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story. It's a familiar fantasy - escaping from the rat race, this time by moving to small town Maine and starting an egg farm. Two co-workers who are also best friends make this move after the older woman is fired and the younger woman quits in support of her. Through a Twitter (!) acquantance they decide to check out a farm for sale in rural Maine. They fall in love with the town and the people they meet there. And of course, the town falls in love with them. Are some of the characters a little too good to be true? Perhaps, but that didn't affect my enjoyment in reading about them. There are trials and tribulations, of course, but the main theme is one of support and friendship and love. A charming tale, delightfully told. Looking forward to the sequels.
    • 1/5
      I requested this book because I thought I would enjoy it. It was just too sappy and as other reviewers have mentioned it became very preachy halfway through. I only finished this book because I received it through Early Reviewers. I won't be reading any of the future books in this series.
    • 2/5
      My Early Reviewers copy of this book arrived with a little note from the author on the title page saying "Welcome to Sovereign," so I really wanted to like this book. Sadly, it was not to be. Hens and Chickens is part of a planned trilogy set in a fictional small town in Maine, where the author (a self-described itinerant Quaker minister) superimposes herself as thew narrator. I'm thinking she is trying to create a northern version of the Mitford series, however, her attempts to draw portraits of colorful up-country characters just doesn't work.The plot concerns two women, Rebecca and Lila, who work for a large Boston insurance company and are the sole surviving members of the company's marketing department after multiple layoffs (unbelievable plot device #1) When Rebecca gets laid off, Lila quits in sympathy and the two women decide to move to Sovereign, Maine on the advice of one of the insurance company's Twitter followers (unbelievable plot device #2). Once there, they manage to but a house on 4 acres for $60,000 (unbelievable plot device #3) and start an organic egg business. Of course they meet all sorts of loveable & eccentric local characters, all of whom are welcoming to the big city duo & romance quickly follows. It's all so sweet that the reader almost needs an insulin shot. The writing borders on the purple. For example:"Hobart heard the words "heart" and "man" somewhere in the back of his brain, but the front of his brain was concentrating on the vision before his eyes. She was almost ethereal, graceful, beautiful - like a delicate silver birch swaying in the April breeze, tossing its dainty branches back and forth as a woman seductively tosses her hair. Her radiant gaze invited him into a personal space he had never been with her before and - he choked"I mean REALLY!Towards the end of the book, the author also starts letting her religious message take hold. That's when I started skimming the pages like mad to get to the end.
    • 3/5
      The story was sweet, though very simple, and not that entertaining. It was also a bit concerting that after the first half of the book religious themes became quite strong. The characters and story lines were underdeveloped and I was left with a feeling of disappointment. I was looking forward to a nice happy read and instead found something that left me feeling as if I has lost the time spent reading this book.
    • 4/5
      I quite liked this book. I found it quaint, and funny. I'm not sure though if this is because I live in Maine, and dream of the kind of lifestyle the characters leave the big city for, but just based on these things alone it would make it hard for me to not like this book. That aside, I laughed, I cried, and I will definitely read the next book.
    • 1/5
      This book, the story of “our hero,” Mike Hobart and “our heroine,” Lila Woodsum, had me laughing at almost every page. Unfortunately, I wasn’t laughing due to amusement, but because the book was so hokey that I had to laugh at its absurdity as well as the descriptions.Not only was it too corny and contrived for me to enjoy, but the author committed the sin of telling instead of showing and her manner of switching unexpectedly from third-person narrative to either directly addressing the readers or using second-person narrative was confusing and irritating. And while parts of the story seemed unbelievable (Would 2,000 people really follow the Tweets of an insurance company? And would Lila really be able to form such a friendship with one of her Twitter followers that she could in an instant decide to move to Miss Hasting’s town in Maine and start selling organic eggs?), the crowning insult was the wording the author used in her descriptions—so overblown that it seemed ridiculous. One of the blurbs on the back cover calls this book a “modern-day Jane Austen fable,” but this book falls far short of Miss Austen’s standard.
    • 4/5
      Slightly reminiscent of "The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society", Jennifer Wixson weaves a sweet story of two women who make the gutsy decision to leave the life they've known, and sell eggs. Definitely modern, Lila is a Twitter user and follower. She tweets with Miss Hastings, a retired piano teacher in the town of Sovereign, Maine, who is the inspiration to raise chickens and sell organic eggs. Lila's catalyst for change is Rebecca - a dedicated employee of a major company, who finds herself without a job one day, due to budget cuts. When Lila is offered Rebecca's job, she is incensed and decides to throw caution to the wind. The story takes a really nice turn, as both women are warmly drawn into the town of Sovereign, finding themselves more at home than they could have possibly imagined. Not only are the women taking risks with the new employment opportunities, they find themselves taking risks in friendships and losing themselves in love. While a bit sappy, I totally enjoyed the believability of this story. It made me feel warm and happy inside, as I traveled through the pages with Lila and Rebecca. Often, I'd find myself smiling and chuckling at the antics of the two women and the wonderful characters, that only small towns can offer. If you like a sappy story and a happy ending, this book is definitely for you!
    • 3/5
      Rebecca and Lila are the last two people left in the marketing department of a Boston corporate office. And when Rebecca is let go, Lila decides to quit too. Since Lila has no idea what she wants to do, she posts her situation on her Twitter account and gets an answer from a follower in Maine suggesting that she think about moving to Sovereign, Maine to a house located nearby and raise chickens. Lila suggests to Rebecca that they make a trip to decide if this was something they might want to do and soon they’ve decided to buy the house and move to Maine and start an egg business. I was hoping for a book similar to Gail Fraiser’s Lumby series or the Jan Karon Mitford series, but this was less successful than those although similar in storyline – the small town group of people and their stories. The first few chapters were rather choppy as the author tried to set up the background and characters. She also had a habit of stepping outside the story and speaking directly to the reader which I found interrupted the flow of the story. Only in the last few chapters is it revealed that this disembodied voice is actually one of the inhabitants of Sovereign. I thought it was an awkward way to bring this character into the book. There are more books planned in this series; we’ll have to wait and see if they improve.
    • 3/5
      This story is about the town of Sovereign, Maine and the effect it has on two New York women who impulsively move there to run an egg farm. The author spends a fair amount of time giving her criticisms of modern society and how the inhabitants of Sovereign are an exception. I found this part of the book a bit preachy. I was also put off by the extensive use of capital letters to put emphasis on words. It reminded me of the writings of an adolescent girl. SO ANNOYING! She tells the story of each of the two "egg ladies" alternately as they meet and are affected by the townspeople. There is not a lot of time spent on character development and the plot turns come quickly. But she creates interesting characters and I did find myself caught up in their stories. The book invites comparison with Betty Mac Donald's The Egg and I and, while I think Mac Donald's book is much better written, Wixson succeeds in telling an entertaining story set in current times.
    • 4/5
      In regards to the first review of this book: It's always wise to finish reading a book before reviewing. You never know what might be revealed in later chapters. Also, why would a reader want to know more about chickens than about the characters? I'm confused. I completed the book and am anxiously awaiting the next in the series.I've always been fascinated by Maine - quaint villages, lighthouses, rocky shores. I've never been there, but it looks and sounds beautiful. Jennifer Wixson's book, "Hens and Chickens", just added to my love of Maine. Ms. Wixson's vivid descriptions of the people and the countryside have me ready to book my plane tickets. "Hens and Chickens" is a lovely story of two women who leave the city and their corporate jobs to start a business together in rural Maine. There's both romance and mystery, but what I loved most were the people. The story is cleverly told through a narrator, who's identity we don't discover until late in the book. The ability of the narrator to speak directly to the reader - an "aside", as they call it on stage - made the story unique. I appreciated Ms. Wixson's romantic couple, who valued honor and respect above sex. I also enjoyed her depiction of the lifestyle and craftsmanship of earlier generations, and a return to that simpler way. The story is a perfect blend of old and new - sewing, raising chickens in a farmyard, baking, mixed with cell phones and computers.The story of The Egg Ladies, Lila and Mike's romance, the secrets in Lila's past - all weave together to make a great read but, for me, it was all about the characters and location. I'm in love with the charming village of Sovereign, Maine, and it's inhabitants and can't wait to go back. Good thing there are three more books planned in this series. plus a companion cookbook.