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Not Quite Home: A Novel
What happens when good intentions collide with hard truths—and two women from different worlds dare to build something better?
Claire has wealth, time, and a growing sense that her life needs purpose. Erica has boots-on-the-ground experience, a fire for justice, and a career on the brink. When their worlds collide at a Portland homeless encampment—Claire doling out gourmet sandwiches and twenties, Erica shutting her down—it sparks a confrontation neither of them expected… and a partnership that could change everything.
Not Quite Home is a sharp, heartfelt novel about privilege, politics, and the power of unlikely alliances. As Claire and Erica join forces to help ten unhoused women start over, they face fierce opposition—from neighbors, city officials, and even their own pasts. But in the mess of broken systems and buried secrets, something extraordinary begins to hope.
For fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Anne Tyler, Temple Lentz delivers a timely, fearless debut about building community, rewriting the rules, and finding home in unexpected places.
About the Author
Temple Lentz is a nonprofit CEO and former local elected official. She has lived mostly in central Ohio, Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest. This is her first book.
Praise for Not Quite Home
“How can a book about homelessness, substance addiction and domestic violence be a page turner and life affirming and informative? Yet that is exactly what Not Quite Home is. It has a suspenseful plot with characters you care deeply about. …[F]rankly, everyone in America should read this book.” —Denny Heck, Lieutenant Governor of Washington State and former Member of Congress
“Temple Lentz has crafted characters so authentically flawed and familiar that we can’t help but see ourselves in them, regardless of where we come from.” —Alexia Vernon, author and CEO, Step into Your Moxie
“[A] novel of powerful literary skill, compassion, and purposeful insight.” —Jenny Forrester, author of Narrow River, Wide A Memoir and The Art of Cherishing the World
Claire has wealth, time, and a growing sense that her life needs purpose. Erica has boots-on-the-ground experience, a fire for justice, and a career on the brink. When their worlds collide at a Portland homeless encampment—Claire doling out gourmet sandwiches and twenties, Erica shutting her down—it sparks a confrontation neither of them expected… and a partnership that could change everything.
Not Quite Home is a sharp, heartfelt novel about privilege, politics, and the power of unlikely alliances. As Claire and Erica join forces to help ten unhoused women start over, they face fierce opposition—from neighbors, city officials, and even their own pasts. But in the mess of broken systems and buried secrets, something extraordinary begins to hope.
For fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Anne Tyler, Temple Lentz delivers a timely, fearless debut about building community, rewriting the rules, and finding home in unexpected places.
About the Author
Temple Lentz is a nonprofit CEO and former local elected official. She has lived mostly in central Ohio, Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest. This is her first book.
Praise for Not Quite Home
“How can a book about homelessness, substance addiction and domestic violence be a page turner and life affirming and informative? Yet that is exactly what Not Quite Home is. It has a suspenseful plot with characters you care deeply about. …[F]rankly, everyone in America should read this book.” —Denny Heck, Lieutenant Governor of Washington State and former Member of Congress
“Temple Lentz has crafted characters so authentically flawed and familiar that we can’t help but see ourselves in them, regardless of where we come from.” —Alexia Vernon, author and CEO, Step into Your Moxie
“[A] novel of powerful literary skill, compassion, and purposeful insight.” —Jenny Forrester, author of Narrow River, Wide A Memoir and The Art of Cherishing the World
330 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 6, 2025
About the author
Temple Lentz
1 book6 followersTemple Lentz is a nonprofit CEO and local elected official. She has lived mostly in central Ohio, Chicago, and the Pacific Northwest.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 14, 2026
Outstanding! I could not put this book down. Realistic, funny and true without being dogmatic-this is a book for everyone’s book club! Socialite Claire and social worker Erica get together to build 10 tiny houses for unhoused women, and all the adventures along the way highlight all the questions we all ask about homelessness and how to fix the problem. Seriously so much to talk about and every character is flawed and redeemable. A must read from a Hayes grad (1993).
May 18, 2025
This story will help you realize how precious each life is and how wildly blessed we are, no matter how little or how much we may possess. This little book will help you learn again it is people who matter most. No one is beyond the grace we may extend. Reading this story may cause us to understand how much grace we need ourselves. This book is gritty, witty, high spirited and full of wisdom nuggets.
Bravo to Lentz for humanizing the crisis of unsheltered homelessness, and sharing how together we CAN make a difference. We CAN bring people back home and build amazing communities!
Bravo to Lentz for humanizing the crisis of unsheltered homelessness, and sharing how together we CAN make a difference. We CAN bring people back home and build amazing communities!
June 18, 2026
At a time when so much conversation about homelessness revolves around the challenge and seeming hopelessness of solutions, there’s something refreshing about a novel, a beautifully written story, that takes on the topic with intelligence and compassion.
Temple Lentz’s NOT QUITE HOME first introduces us to Claire, a wealthy widow who remains in conversation with her deceased husband while struggling to find meaning and value in her privilege. Frustrated when it seems her hefty donations don’t seem to be going where they could be most effective, she willingly burns some bridges in her effort to find the meaning she’s look for. That’s when she meets Erica, a woman more tangibly and effectively out in the world fighting the good fight for needy women, and a friendship, albeit a twitchy one, is born.
As these two unlikely protagonists come together, innovative solutions are put on the table. But when progress becomes clear, and the reality of their dream of a shelter community for women begins to take shape, the naysayers, NIMBY voices, and “regulation warriors” step into the fray to stymy things. As do the clashing goals and visions of some of the women involved. When one of those women finds the custody of her two children at risk, Claire leaps into the matter, unwittingly creating more problems as a result. Suspense builds as the opening of the shelter gets closer and the push and pull of outside forces, some of them dangerous, move onto center-stage.
It’s not every day that a story built on these plot points would bring suspense, edge, and roller-coastering emotions and alliances into the narrative, but Lentz masterfully does just that. Building characters that are relatable, humanly flawed, but deeply moving, she’s created a touching, powerful read I highly recommend.
Temple Lentz’s NOT QUITE HOME first introduces us to Claire, a wealthy widow who remains in conversation with her deceased husband while struggling to find meaning and value in her privilege. Frustrated when it seems her hefty donations don’t seem to be going where they could be most effective, she willingly burns some bridges in her effort to find the meaning she’s look for. That’s when she meets Erica, a woman more tangibly and effectively out in the world fighting the good fight for needy women, and a friendship, albeit a twitchy one, is born.
As these two unlikely protagonists come together, innovative solutions are put on the table. But when progress becomes clear, and the reality of their dream of a shelter community for women begins to take shape, the naysayers, NIMBY voices, and “regulation warriors” step into the fray to stymy things. As do the clashing goals and visions of some of the women involved. When one of those women finds the custody of her two children at risk, Claire leaps into the matter, unwittingly creating more problems as a result. Suspense builds as the opening of the shelter gets closer and the push and pull of outside forces, some of them dangerous, move onto center-stage.
It’s not every day that a story built on these plot points would bring suspense, edge, and roller-coastering emotions and alliances into the narrative, but Lentz masterfully does just that. Building characters that are relatable, humanly flawed, but deeply moving, she’s created a touching, powerful read I highly recommend.
May 29, 2025
A wealthy widow and a weary outreach worker build a partnership neither of them expected in Lentz's compelling debut. Claire has money, connections, and a growing sense that writing checks isn’t enough. Erica has experience, exhaustion, and a job hanging by a thread. When their worlds collide at a homeless encampment, they clash hard. But soon, confrontation turns to collaboration, and the two women launch a daring plan to house ten unhoused women in a community of their own.
Lentz’s writing is sharp, brisk, and funny without undercutting the emotional weight. She writes with clarity and bite about structural inequity and the fraught nature of “helping.” Supporting characters, from a savvy single mom caught between systems, a streetwise woman with a knife and a code to a cop who walks the line between ally and enabler, add depth and complexity. But it’s Claire and Erica who carry the novel’s emotional weight, offering two radically different but equally compelling lenses on what it means to build something real, one imperfect step at a time. A piercing and hopeful novel about second chances, uneasy alliances, and the work of becoming useful again.
Lentz’s writing is sharp, brisk, and funny without undercutting the emotional weight. She writes with clarity and bite about structural inequity and the fraught nature of “helping.” Supporting characters, from a savvy single mom caught between systems, a streetwise woman with a knife and a code to a cop who walks the line between ally and enabler, add depth and complexity. But it’s Claire and Erica who carry the novel’s emotional weight, offering two radically different but equally compelling lenses on what it means to build something real, one imperfect step at a time. A piercing and hopeful novel about second chances, uneasy alliances, and the work of becoming useful again.
June 15, 2025
Well-written and great story. It serves as a great reminder of the role each of us can play in making meaningful change in our community, especially in addressing houselessness, and the importance of challenging our biases toward others. I appreciated the development of relationships among the characters, including the rocky moments that felt relatable and realistic. A good story, but also an opportunity for self-reflection.
August 23, 2025
Absolutely fantastic novel. The ending had me in tears. While the novels centers on homelessness, it’s a wonderful story about grief, identity, friendship, and motherhood, and family.
“The problem of homelessness, and all of the contributing factors that lead people into homelessness, isn’t something any one person, government agency, or group can solve. We all need to do our part, because it affects all of us”
“The problem of homelessness, and all of the contributing factors that lead people into homelessness, isn’t something any one person, government agency, or group can solve. We all need to do our part, because it affects all of us”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 6, 2025
Smart, compassionate, and deeply human. This novel tackles homelessness and privilege without sentimentality, showing how unlikely alliances can lead to real change. A thoughtful, engaging read that balances social insight with genuine heart.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews