Book Review: Dakota Blues

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase through links on my site, I may earn a commission at no cost to you. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

This is my book review of Dakota Blues by Lynn M. Spreen.

Karen seems to spend all her time working. Her career defines her.

She is on the ropes. Far from home and newly unemployed, she agrees to take an older neighbor on one last road trip in her vintage RV. Already reeling, she learns the truth about her husband’s sordid affair.

As the trip draws to a close, Karen will have a choice to make. Will she return to the comfort and familiarity of her old life, or find the courage to create something new?

Dakota Blues is the inspiring first book in the Karen Grace women’s fiction series. If you love the idea of small towns, fresh starts, and reinvention road trips, you’ll love this uplifting midlife novel.

Her husband tells her that he has gotten a woman half his age pregnant and needs a divorce.

Her mother dies, and she flies back home for the funeral, chastising herself for not taking time off to go back and visit her while she was still alive.

While she’s back home, her boss decides to fire her. 

Facing the End of Things:

At age 50, Karen is facing a divorce, the end of her job, and possibly the end of her career. She wasn’t as important and influential in her position as she’d thought. 

She has worked long enough to make good wages. And the powers that be oftentimes fire people like her, so they can hire someone younger and pay them less. 

I think this is a good book for any woman to read, particularly if you are in this age group.  

It often takes a disaster, a divorce, or both to make us pause for reflection. To look at where we are in our lives.

Money is one thing, as everyone has to pay the bills. But no one wants written on their gravestone: “I worked myself to death, and while I did, I somehow missed out on living.”

So many words of wisdom in this book! 

My Thoughts:

I downloaded this book for free on my Kindle through one of the freebie e-book sites. But I would have gladly purchased this one in book form. 

This book is about a woman who is forced to look at what is truly important in life. What she first thinks of as a horrible turn of events ends up being the best thing that has ever happened to her.

And with this epiphany, she realizes that the little everyday things in life are what are most precious. 

Rain on your face. Touching the velvety softness of a rose petal. Watching the sun rise and set.

All these things have no dollar tags; they are free to enjoy. If only one takes the time.

Reading this book while Karen learns this lesson herself is a gift in and of itself.

About the Author:

All my life, I dreamed of literary success. I wanted to write and publish a blockbuster novel and live the life of a successful author. The universe had other plans, so I set the dream aside and applied myself to earning a paycheck.

While rearing my son, climbing a career ladder, and working my way through three marriages, a singular fantasy sustained me. It looked something like this: a phone call, a breathless literary agent asking if I was sitting down. And the offer of a massive amount of money for my debut novel.