What do you think?
Rate this book
Hardwired
Award-winning teacher Clary Stone is home for the summer, helping her family and recovering from a personal tragedy. She loves her Wisconsin city on Lake Michigan, hoping to find what’s left of herself in the familiar warmth and safety. At first, the city is the same, but she soon finds things have changed. Clary becomes involved in parts of the town that she’s never seen or known before. The summer’s odd journey leads her to the city’s homeless shelter for small children. Leefe Ellis manages the shelter and is totally unlike anyone Clary’s ever met. Homeless since the age of three, Leefe reveals another side of life with remarkable courage, honesty, and humanity. Working side by side with the little children, both realize they are fellow travelers, but neither has met another person as completely different as they are from each other. It’s often confusing, sometimes frightening, but always fascinating.
285 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 9, 2015
4 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
C.P. Rowlands
5 books22 followersBorn and raised in the Midwest, C.P. Rowlands attended college in Iowa and lived in the southwest and on the west coast before returning to Wisconsin. She is an artist in addition to having worked in radio, sales, and various other jobs. She has two children, four grandchildren, a partner of many years, and some critters. All in all, it’s a happy life. (from the author's website)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 1, 2018
A really good read from the first chapter all the way to the very end. Great interaction between both centralize character and their development was well done plus their feelings and love that they showed for each other came out on the pages. Added to this well written storyline were all the other characters who helped craft their niche and side stories. Enjoyed how Jesse angst show during the plot and the author even gave an explanation at the end. Included also in this story:- homelessness,child poverty,domestic violence etc...risky book and topic but great storytelling even though its a touchy subject in this country. I have to give this author a big THANK YOU for writing this book and including the love story..Highly recommend
July 8, 2015
Hardwired C.P. Rowlands
Hardwired is a mature novel that successfully melds important content and believable romance. What makes this novel so memorable is that Rowlands never resorts to the overly dramatic and yet she creates a page turner of a story about serious people dealing with serious issues. Shattered by a broken relationship, Clary Stone returns to her Lake Michigan hometown of South Port, Wisconsin, to put herself back together. She is shocked to discover that the city she remembers as idyllic now suffers from the impact of recession, suffering that is evident in the number of homeless children that haunt the streets. Her best friend since grade school, Jesse Lowden, is now a police officer and introduces Clary to the problems that accompany a homeless population.
A teacher by profession, Clary accepts an invitation from Jesse’s partner, Piper, also a teacher, to take part in a summer pilot program for low income students. Clary’s path crosses that of Leefe Ellis, a young woman who was once homeless herself. When Clary suggests that Leefe would be an asset to the program, she finds that Jesse has severe reservations about Leefe that she is reluctant to explain. Rowlands’ pacing of the growing attraction between Clary and Leefe is believable and never falters.
Clearly Rowlands wants her readers to come away from Hardwired with an enhanced awareness of the situation of homeless people, especially children, and to show how the people of one city attempt to deal with the problem on personal as well as professional levels. But what I also loved about the novel was that a number of the characters are so familiar: women we love to death even as they drive us crazy. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
Hardwired is a mature novel that successfully melds important content and believable romance. What makes this novel so memorable is that Rowlands never resorts to the overly dramatic and yet she creates a page turner of a story about serious people dealing with serious issues. Shattered by a broken relationship, Clary Stone returns to her Lake Michigan hometown of South Port, Wisconsin, to put herself back together. She is shocked to discover that the city she remembers as idyllic now suffers from the impact of recession, suffering that is evident in the number of homeless children that haunt the streets. Her best friend since grade school, Jesse Lowden, is now a police officer and introduces Clary to the problems that accompany a homeless population.
A teacher by profession, Clary accepts an invitation from Jesse’s partner, Piper, also a teacher, to take part in a summer pilot program for low income students. Clary’s path crosses that of Leefe Ellis, a young woman who was once homeless herself. When Clary suggests that Leefe would be an asset to the program, she finds that Jesse has severe reservations about Leefe that she is reluctant to explain. Rowlands’ pacing of the growing attraction between Clary and Leefe is believable and never falters.
Clearly Rowlands wants her readers to come away from Hardwired with an enhanced awareness of the situation of homeless people, especially children, and to show how the people of one city attempt to deal with the problem on personal as well as professional levels. But what I also loved about the novel was that a number of the characters are so familiar: women we love to death even as they drive us crazy. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
January 4, 2016
I've had this on my Kindle since its release, however keep overlooking it when choosing a new book to read. I thought from the book blurb, and reading other reviews, that I'd have to be in the right frame of mind before tackling this book - boy, was I wrong. I really enjoyed Clary and Leafe's story.
Yes, I know it's fiction, however I'm still in awe at how Leafe was able to make such a success of her life considering her childhood.
All in all, a pretty good book.
Yes, I know it's fiction, however I'm still in awe at how Leafe was able to make such a success of her life considering her childhood.
All in all, a pretty good book.
March 23, 2020
The main problem I had with this novel is I don’t think it knew what it wanted it to be. Is it supposed to be a romance? a mystery? a book about homelessness and the economic decline of a community? I didn’t get what the story was trying to do. And while I liked the main characters, the supporting characters didn’t do much except to complicate and muddy the plot. I also felt very distant to the story as a reader—like I was stumbling upon conversations or other moments after they’d already started, which was really frustrating and meant it took way too long for me to find a foothold with the story itself. This was just okay, but it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
May 27, 2023
Found this book extremely difficult to get into. The characters were not fully developed, nor explained. As soon as the story started there was discord and trauma between people that wasn't understandable or explained. I just couldn't read more.
October 26, 2015
This was better than your average f/f romance, I think because of the novel characters. There's a sub-genre of romance in general, I think, where one character is struggling or hurt, and the other character swoops in to "save" them, and they fall in love. This novel is... not that.
Leefe was abandoned as a child, spent part of her youth homeless, and basically educated herself. Clary is a successful award winning teacher with a supportive, robust upbringing. Of the two, Leefe is the more stable, capable and well-adjusted one. She runs a day care for homeless children, and has really established herself as a vital part of the community and created her own non-biological family. It was great to see the two characters meet on equal ground and fall in love because of who they are -- this seems obvious, but it's not what I was expecting from the summary.
Otherwise, this was your everyday f/f romance. There were no glaring orthographical errors, but there were a few small errors in continuity that briefly threw me out of the story. The supporting characters were well done - I especially enjoyed that they weren't all likeable. In fact, many of them were heartily unlikeable. This is realistic, though - I identified with Clary going home and realizing that perhaps she and her childhood friends had grown apart and were in different places than they once were.
I wish there had been more about homeless kids' experience in the school system. Not that it needed to be a public service announcement or after-school special type book, but there was a missed opportunity to raise awareness even more than the book already did. Overall, though, an enjoyable and quick read.
Leefe was abandoned as a child, spent part of her youth homeless, and basically educated herself. Clary is a successful award winning teacher with a supportive, robust upbringing. Of the two, Leefe is the more stable, capable and well-adjusted one. She runs a day care for homeless children, and has really established herself as a vital part of the community and created her own non-biological family. It was great to see the two characters meet on equal ground and fall in love because of who they are -- this seems obvious, but it's not what I was expecting from the summary.
Otherwise, this was your everyday f/f romance. There were no glaring orthographical errors, but there were a few small errors in continuity that briefly threw me out of the story. The supporting characters were well done - I especially enjoyed that they weren't all likeable. In fact, many of them were heartily unlikeable. This is realistic, though - I identified with Clary going home and realizing that perhaps she and her childhood friends had grown apart and were in different places than they once were.
I wish there had been more about homeless kids' experience in the school system. Not that it needed to be a public service announcement or after-school special type book, but there was a missed opportunity to raise awareness even more than the book already did. Overall, though, an enjoyable and quick read.
January 26, 2017
This book pulled at my heart with both sorrow and joy. The plot is a huge eye opener that needs to be more publicized. The prose was not of great depth, but the author did a wonderful job in portraying the seriousness of homeless children. Therefore, also what optimism and ambition can do to make a difference in not only someone else's life but your own. As a reader, you will learn something from this book. Rowlands did a magnificent job developing the main characters Clary and Leefe. I found the descriptiveness in this book spectacular. Though this book is fiction, I hope that the programs for the homeless children in this read are based on fact. Most people think of the homeless as only adults that have mental issues this being far from the actual truth. Everyone falls on hard luck, some worse than others the crushing part is when people cannot get themselves out of this situation. This book helps in understanding the truth for the children displaced due to homelessness. I would like to thank C.P. Rowlands for bringing this issue to the public's attention.
"Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to review this book"
"Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to review this book"
November 13, 2016
I put off reading this book as I thought it may be a bit hard with the story line, especially dealing with children. How silly was I!! It was a wonderfully uplifting read. Yes, hard in places with so many secrets being uncovered, however the two main characters just get under your skin in so many ways you keep turning those pages. A great book to read. Thank you Ms Rowlands.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews