Making Arrangements, Inheriting a Family Funeral Home Leads to Trouble

by Eliot Parker

The death of Colin Madsen's beloved father brings Colin home to the small town of Concord, Massachusetts, facing a decision to keep or sell the family funeral home. Colin himself has no interest in the business, but he wants to make sure his father's legacy is continued. As Colin struggles with the decision, he reconnects with Ava, his childhood neighbor and friend. Colin and Ava seem like an ideal match, but when Ava becomes unemployed and takes a corporate job in funeral home acquisitions, the seemingly innocent move sets off a chain reaction of problems that threaten their relationship and the existence of the funeral home Colin wants to protect.

Genres: Fiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2014

About the author

Eliot Parker teaches writing and literature at Mountwest Community and Technical College in Huntington, West Virginia, and hosts the television show “Chapters,” which profiles authors, editors, and publishers in West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky. He received the West Virginia Literary Merit Award in 2016, as well as the Bronze Award for Mystery/Thriller Writing from the National Literary Habitat Organization. Eliot is a graduate of the Bluegrass Writers' Studio at Eastern Kentucky University.

Reviews

[Jenny McCain · Rating 5 out of 5]

an absolutely wonderful read!

[John Herrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the moment I heard the premise of Eliot Parker's Making Arrangements, I looked forward to reading it. Parker takes an overlooked profession--and its various aspects which we can so easily take for granted--and drops his main character, Colin, into the midst of it. The novel is a love story combined with a story of self-discovery. As a reader, I fell in love with the first half of Making Arrangements, in particular, walking with Colin as he discovers the family business anew. The small-town descriptions and the quirky supporting staff at the mortuary drew me into the book, and I polished off the first half in a few hours. In Making Arrangements, Parker shifted his focus from a sports theme to a theme of heart discovery and did an excellent job digging into his character. Parker clearly stretched as a writer and produced a great read!

[John Herrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the moment I heard the premise of Eliot Parker's Making Arrangements, I looked forward to reading it. Parker takes an overlooked profession--and its various aspects which we can so easily take for granted--and drops his main character, Colin, into the midst of it. The novel is a love story combined with a story of self-discovery. As a reader, I fell in love with the first half of Making Arrangements, in particular, walking with Colin as he discovers the family business anew. The small-town descriptions and the quirky supporting staff at the mortuary drew me into the book, and I polished off the first half in a few hours. In Making Arrangements, Parker shifted his focus from a sports theme to a theme of heart discovery and did an excellent job digging into his character. Parker clearly stretched as a writer and produced a great read!

[Jennifer Weingardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book because I know the author and because my family has been in the cemetery business since the early 1930s. I thought the subject matter would give me deeper insight into the industry. While I did gain perspective, I also grew to care about the characters and the outcome of the story. Colin, the protagonist, took me on a wild ride emotionally as there are a lot of twists and turns to this story. I could also connect with the feeling of struggling to honor a parent's legacy in business and in the community. The descriptions of the Boston, Massachusetts, and the Ogunquit, Maine, areas were spot on and they took me down memory lane to my travels through New England, to include a stay at The Cliff House.