Up Beaver Creek

by Sue Fagalde Lick

It’s bad enough that PD’s husband left her a childless widow at 42, but when she heads west from Montana to the Oregon coast to remake her life with a new name, a new look and a new determination to become a professional musician, things keep going wrong. Her cabin has a few problems, but the landlord has disappeared. The She’s running out of money, and her first music gig is a disaster. Is she doomed to be penniless and pitiful? Not if she can help it.

289 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 25, 2018

About the author

Sue Fagalde Lick is a freelance writer/musician. After graduating with a BA in journalism from San Jose State University, she spent many years working for newspapers in California and Oregon before going into full-time freelancing. She has published 12 books, as well as numerous essays and poems. She also sings and plays guitar, mandolin and piano, loves to bake, and hikes the Oregon coast with her dog Annie. She earned her MFA in creative nonfiction at Antioch University Los Angeles.
Sue blogs at http://www.unleashedinoregon.com and http://www.childlessbymarriageblog.com. For more information, visit http://www.suelick.com.

Reviews

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to be a Beta reader of this book and I have to say, it was a really good one. Great characters overall, but the main character P.D. Soares is not only fun to follow, but she has a great heart. If you have not picked up a copy yet, you should, it’s a book you don’t want to miss.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are familiar with Sue Fagalde Lick's blogs -- Childless by Marriage &/or Unleashed in Oregon -- you will recognize that her novel "Up Beaver Creek" is drawn from her own life experiences. As the book begins, our heroine, Cissy Soares -- recently widowed, 42 years old and childless -- has quit her hospital job in Missoula, Montana, put her belongings in storage, rented out her house, cut her hair, gotten a tattoo, changed her name to P.D., and headed to Oregon with the goal of starting a new life and becoming a singer. She winds up house-sitting near the coastal town of Newport, for a landlord who promptly disappears into the ether, leaving her to deal with quirky neighbours, cranky cats, power outages, intermittent cellphone service, leaky roofs -- and other, more consequential disasters.

The pace was a bit slow to start, as P.D. gradually settles into her new life, but things pick up midway through, and I found myself zooming through the last few chapters to find out what happened next. I've vacationed in Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast (about 2.5 hours north of Newport) several times, and it's one of my favourite vacation spots ever (the ominous tsunami evacuation route signs notwithstanding...!) -- so I had a pretty clear picture of the area Sue was describing. I will admit I was probably predisposed to like this book on that point alone!

What I really like & appreciate about this book is its honest depiction of life as a single, widowed, childless woman, rebuilding her life, coping with all kinds of problems by herself, and finding an inner strength she didn't know she had. I am fortunate enough to be married, albeit childless after infertility & pregnancy loss, so I know a little something about grief and loss. Sue's depiction of P.D.'s grief over the death of her husband and the life she thought she'd have with him was spot on and something I could very much relate to. Heroines like P.D. are far & few between; books with characters like her that don't wind up with a wedding (although there are hints of possible romance in the future) &/or a baby are rare indeed. :)

[michele kemper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story!!

The writing was was so warm and friendly I felt at home with the characters. right away. I really liked the easy flow of the story line and it made me happy!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more than I enjoyed Seal Rock Sound. It might be a different review if I had read them in order. As someone who was at the Oregon Coast during two tsunamis (the big one in 1964 and the smaller one 4 decades later) I could visualize the tsunami going out and then very quietly coming in with a vengeance. We were in what was then Taft, at the bottom of the hill below the Ester Lee Motel..in a vacay house we owned. We took the cars to the top of the hill but watched the rest of it from about halfway down the hill (in retrospect not nearly far enough away)....The description in this book took me right back there.

[Vickie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing story! Tears shed sometimes. Good luck in your future endeavors, Sue.

[Ellen Barker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read - a starting-over story of family, friends, and framily, with a side of potential romance. It's all so realistic - no one is perfect, but no one is perfectly evil either. Sue Lick is a great storyteller with a knack for developing her very interesting characters over time, revealing them bit by bit. I loved this book.