Upside Down in a Laura Ingalls Town

An out-of-control sixteen-year-old finds her life turned upside down when her father signs the family up for reality show. The time: 1861. The place: The North Carolina backcountry. For four months, Brooke Decker must leave behind the modern frills she can’t live without. But can a young girl’s wishful heart surrender to a time and place she believes she can never call home? More

Sarton Women's Literary Award, NC Author Project Award, Story Monsters Ink Certificate of Excellence.

It has been a long and difficult year for the Decker family, especially for sixteen-year-old Brooke. Her grades have plummeted. She deliberately breaks curfew. She makes out with boys she hardly knows.

And now her father has totally lost it. When Tim Decker signs up his family of three to be contestants on a Hollywood reality show, Brooke’s life turns upside down. The place: The North Carolina backcountry. The year: 1861.

Brooke is forced to trade in her Victoria’s Secret bra for a rib-cracking corset, her comfy jeans for an ugly farm dress, and her private bathroom for an outhouse. Television cameras will follow her every move as she lives the grueling life of a mid-nineteenth-century farm girl: milking a cow, churning butter, fetching water countless times a day, and riding in a horse-drawn wagon along a rutted road to spend pennies in town.

This will be Brooke’s life for four awful months. Unless, of course, she breaks the rules and the producers kick her off the show…

Other families are scattered throughout Sweet Sugar Gap. The snotty Prudence Miller soon becomes Brooke’s rival. Wendell Murphy, who works at the local mercantile, is instantly smitten with Brooke—but also makes her suspicious. Does the only cute boy in town really like her, or is he merely showing off for the cameras?

Brooke Decker may just have to find a way to make it in the backcountry, leaving behind the modern frills she can’t live without. But can a young girl’s wishful heart surrender to a time and place she believes she can never call home?

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