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Kelli's Pine
“When a man chooses to be a father, his dreams for his children and family come first and are more important. A father’s job is to make dreams come true for others. You did that for your son.”Eddie Blackburn was grateful when he heard those words from a dear friend a couple of weeks after his son Cole left home to be on his own. For eighteen years Eddie poured his heart and soul into making sure Cole didn’t have daddy issues. His own dreams were dashed by a father who disappeared leaving Eddie to drop out of school, run the family business, and pick up the pieces.It all changed the night Eddie saw Kelli Swanson sitting on his sofa watching television.Kelli was a basketball All-America. Intensely private, she hated the attention, longing to be anonymous. Personal and family issues led her to make choices that altered the path that once seemed a given. After it all fell apart, Eddie was there to pick up the pieces.When Cole was born, Eddie vowed that he’d provide the guidance his son would need to change the family narrative and achieve something in life. Cole’s incredible baseball skills forced his father to make decisions that would have a deep effect on his son’s future and perhaps alter the path of all three lives.Kelli’s Pine is a place of redemption through love, perseverance, sacrifice, and family.
315 pages, Paperback
Published March 31, 2020
5 people are currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Jay Grochowski
3 books7 followersJay Grochowski grew up in Lisle, Illinois. He earned his BA in journalism from Indiana University where he played outfield for the Hoosiers. After two years as the Sports Information Director and Head Baseball Coach at George Williams College in Downers Grove IL, Jay embarked on a 35-year sales career that has taken him to each of the lower 48 and Hawaii. He currently lives near Chicago.
Kelli’s Pine is his first novel.
Kelli’s Pine is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 28, 2020
A fine first novel is always a gem to read. We love familiar authors, as we should, but that first time out is one that is exciting. We have a new voice, and when it works, the result is something special. This one has all the marks of being special.
Jay Grochowski has written a well-plotted look into several lives. Eddie Blackburn, a young man who loves baseball. His sister Krissy was a high school basketball player, and her teammate and close friend Kelli Swanson was a hoops star. But do not expect this to be a baseball novel or a basketball novel or a sports novel. When Eddie meets Kelli, it becomes a story about two young people who fall in love, marry, and have a son. Cole Blackburn, their son, is another young man who lives and loves baseball. As the novel moves backward from its conclusion to the steps that framed Cole’s life and the lives of his parents, we see that it is a novel about people. Human beings. People with strengths and weaknesses, with dreams of the future, and with the work ethic to make dreams come true. The author has brought these people to life.
An intriguing story showing complex people as they engage in the activities they are involved in, the novel also brings baseball and basketball to life, and we enjoy seeing it all play out. We learn about the job Eddie works for decades, taking over a family business after his father had left Eddie and Krissy and their mother. We hear their voices, understand their dreams, and care about all of them. Once an author has us caring about his characters, everything else falls into place.
Join in and see Cole playing baseball, watch as Eddie and Kelli do everything they can to make it all work and see where it takes you. My guess is that you will put the novel on the shelf where you keep the ones worth re-reading. Who knows, you might even decide it is a great novel. Enjoy.
Jay Grochowski has written a well-plotted look into several lives. Eddie Blackburn, a young man who loves baseball. His sister Krissy was a high school basketball player, and her teammate and close friend Kelli Swanson was a hoops star. But do not expect this to be a baseball novel or a basketball novel or a sports novel. When Eddie meets Kelli, it becomes a story about two young people who fall in love, marry, and have a son. Cole Blackburn, their son, is another young man who lives and loves baseball. As the novel moves backward from its conclusion to the steps that framed Cole’s life and the lives of his parents, we see that it is a novel about people. Human beings. People with strengths and weaknesses, with dreams of the future, and with the work ethic to make dreams come true. The author has brought these people to life.
An intriguing story showing complex people as they engage in the activities they are involved in, the novel also brings baseball and basketball to life, and we enjoy seeing it all play out. We learn about the job Eddie works for decades, taking over a family business after his father had left Eddie and Krissy and their mother. We hear their voices, understand their dreams, and care about all of them. Once an author has us caring about his characters, everything else falls into place.
Join in and see Cole playing baseball, watch as Eddie and Kelli do everything they can to make it all work and see where it takes you. My guess is that you will put the novel on the shelf where you keep the ones worth re-reading. Who knows, you might even decide it is a great novel. Enjoy.
May 18, 2020
A great read! The author has done a wonderful job of blending multiple characters and bringing you to the highs and lows of true-to-life stories.
April 18, 2020
Kelli's Pine is a rare find, it drew me in from the first page, I didn't want to put to put it down. The storytelling was excellent, the character development of so many characters that were entwined together, loyalty, social dysfunction as well as a love for sports. I truly appreciated the point of view on youth athletics, the creative solution and how it all played out.
I didn't want it to end, a very satisfying story.
I didn't want it to end, a very satisfying story.
April 20, 2020
Many authors try to tackle the subject of love, trust and sacrifice while giving you a small glimpse or a very limited view into their characters' lives. The author of "Kelli's Pine" invites you in and provides you with your own seat at the table, around the bonfire and in the stands. The character development is so well done the reader feels a connection akin to a personal relationship with most, if not all, of the characters. All that is left is to meet them in person. Sights, sounds and smells seem to radiate from it pages. At times, I swear I caught a whiff of perfume, cigarette smoke and the fumes from a "port-a-potty". It was hard to put down. I hope we get to meet and check-in on these characters again sometime in the near future. I applaud the author. You knocked it out of the park. Now, touch'em all! I want to thank the friend who recommended this book to me and I would like to recommend this book to you. I found the entertainment value of this book to be worth much more than the price of admission.
April 29, 2020
Great story and kept me wanting to read more. Can’t wait for the next book!
June 8, 2020
Excellent! I really enjoyed this! Being a mom of 4 baseball/basketball players, I was brought back to exciting games and great times at the ballparks!
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October 27, 2020Great book, especially for a first novel. The book has a family dynamic as well as a sports dynamic all wrapped in an out of each other. If you are looking for a bit more masculine book this is a great choice as well. Many novels are not geared towards men and this one I think would strike cords with many men and fathers and connect to fathers and sons struggles in real life. Written with heart and well edited to keep the reader going. I think some of the scenarios are a bit of a stretch , but I think this makes it more fun to read. Give it a shot you wont be disappointed.
July 1, 2020
Finished Kelli’s Pine - I absolutely loved it. So relatable on a ton of fronts. The joy and pressure of HS sports on kids, parents, coaches and communities. Youth angst, bad parenting, great parenting, the worry if you’re doing what’s best for your kid. It made me laugh, cry, think, feel - it covered all the bases (pun intended). This is a great book for everyone but it’s an especially good read for those parents who’s kids are involved in the high pressure travel sports world.
June 23, 2020
Kelli’s Pine, was an amazing love story that felt so realistic many times it felt that Jay Grochowski was telling my own life story. I truly appreciate the way Jay captured the pressures of being a student and professional athlete as well as his coverage of Social Anxiety Disorder within the book. All in All great book, definitely recommend.
December 20, 2020
Absolutely loved the story! Great humor mixed in with real life experiences! Loved the sports theme entwined with a little romance. Great choice of occupation for Eddie! :-)
September 14, 2020
I love books that are character driven. I also love Baseball. This book had both! Growing up in the Midwest, I could really relate to the characters and by the end, I felt as if I knew them. The characters were richly developed and you could tell that the author knows a thing or two about the game of baseball. I would highly recommend this book by first time Jay Grochowski!
June 20, 2020
This is not only a book about baseball, but about families and relationships with dads. The timeline starts in the present and goes back in time to fill in the storyline. Really enjoyed reading how Eddie grew up and grew into parenting.
June 11, 2020
Jay Grochowski did an amazing job with Kelli's Pine!
This is a dynamic book. Important topics are discussed: family relationships, pressures put on teenagers, and SAD (social anxiety disorder). Woven within these valuable topics is America's great pasttime: baseball.
Truth be told, I've never been a huge baseball fan, BUT Kelli's Pine author, Jay Grochowski, educated me on the game.
As a busy mother of 3, my "me time" is important to me. If a book doesn't capture my attention, I give up on it. I couldn't put it down.
For a book about REAL life struggles and celebrations, read Kelli's Pine!
This is a dynamic book. Important topics are discussed: family relationships, pressures put on teenagers, and SAD (social anxiety disorder). Woven within these valuable topics is America's great pasttime: baseball.
Truth be told, I've never been a huge baseball fan, BUT Kelli's Pine author, Jay Grochowski, educated me on the game.
As a busy mother of 3, my "me time" is important to me. If a book doesn't capture my attention, I give up on it. I couldn't put it down.
For a book about REAL life struggles and celebrations, read Kelli's Pine!
September 7, 2020
Awesome read! Jay does an excellent job showing the strength of family, perseverance and love. I enjoyed the love story and how it was relatable to families with athletes. You also get to experience the authors humor and wit through out the book. Awaiting the next...
July 29, 2020
Nice. This story will leave you feeling good and happy and hopeful. It would make a great Hallmark movie. Looking forward to reading more from this author.
April 26, 2024
Most sports fiction books that I have read will deal mostly with the sport and the role it plays in the characters’ lives in some way. In “Kelli’s Pine”, an excellent novel by Jay Grochowski, the sports that are involved in the story are important, but not the driving force in the book and that is a good thing for this story.
The book revolves mainly around three characters – Eddie Blackburn, his wife Kelli and their son Cole. Eddie did not finish high school because he had to rescue the family business of providing and servicing portable toilets. This became necessary when his father left his wife and family with not only the business but also a $40,000 gambling debt. Eddie succeeded in making the business work, but at the cost of his dreams of playing professional baseball.
Kelli Swanson was a star basketball player in high school and her father was a legendary athlete in their hometown of Mankato, Minnesota as well. However, she and Eddie had an instant connection and one night near a pine tree where they shared their first Christmas, Cole was conceived. Kelli and Eddie married shortly after Kelli discovered she was pregnant. While this, along with knee surgery ended her basketball dreams, Kelli and Eddie raised Cole well and he became a baseball star through a program run by Eddie.
The baseball scenes in the book after Cole signed with the independent league Mankato Carp are excellent in describing his baseball talents. If a reader wants to find a comparison, Cole could be considered a fictional version of Shohei Ohtani with talent in both hitting and pitching. But overall, there is not a lot of baseball in the book – enough for a fan to enjoy it, but it is far from the main theme of the story. The same goes for basketball – even though Kelli and Eddie’s sister Krissy played on a championship team, the basketball scenes are short but very descriptive.
What makes the book so good and one that would be enjoyed by many readers – sports fans or not – is that it covers a wide range of topics and also has great character development. To start, it might be considered by some to be a romance novel with the story of Eddie and Kelli’s relationship and how it remained strong. It touches on mental health with both Kelli and Cole suffering from social anxiety disorder. The story has a lot of family dynamics at play. Not just with the three main characters, but also others in both the Blackburn and Swanson family. Nearly every parent, grandparent and sibling in both families have their character developed and the reader will walk away knowing more about them.
Because these characters are well-developed with admirable characteristics and some flaws, the reader will have a hard time picking any one to be a bad person. This is even true for the two fathers – Eddie’s and Kelli’s father, who attacked Eddie when he found out his daughter was pregnant.
Hopefully, I have not given away too much of this story because one has to read every word to get all that a reader should get from this book. It is one of the few books I have received that I have read more than once and that is why this review is later than what I promised to the author – I had to read it a second time before writing this so that I could fully digest this excellent story.
I wish to thank the author for providing a review copy of the book. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
The book revolves mainly around three characters – Eddie Blackburn, his wife Kelli and their son Cole. Eddie did not finish high school because he had to rescue the family business of providing and servicing portable toilets. This became necessary when his father left his wife and family with not only the business but also a $40,000 gambling debt. Eddie succeeded in making the business work, but at the cost of his dreams of playing professional baseball.
Kelli Swanson was a star basketball player in high school and her father was a legendary athlete in their hometown of Mankato, Minnesota as well. However, she and Eddie had an instant connection and one night near a pine tree where they shared their first Christmas, Cole was conceived. Kelli and Eddie married shortly after Kelli discovered she was pregnant. While this, along with knee surgery ended her basketball dreams, Kelli and Eddie raised Cole well and he became a baseball star through a program run by Eddie.
The baseball scenes in the book after Cole signed with the independent league Mankato Carp are excellent in describing his baseball talents. If a reader wants to find a comparison, Cole could be considered a fictional version of Shohei Ohtani with talent in both hitting and pitching. But overall, there is not a lot of baseball in the book – enough for a fan to enjoy it, but it is far from the main theme of the story. The same goes for basketball – even though Kelli and Eddie’s sister Krissy played on a championship team, the basketball scenes are short but very descriptive.
What makes the book so good and one that would be enjoyed by many readers – sports fans or not – is that it covers a wide range of topics and also has great character development. To start, it might be considered by some to be a romance novel with the story of Eddie and Kelli’s relationship and how it remained strong. It touches on mental health with both Kelli and Cole suffering from social anxiety disorder. The story has a lot of family dynamics at play. Not just with the three main characters, but also others in both the Blackburn and Swanson family. Nearly every parent, grandparent and sibling in both families have their character developed and the reader will walk away knowing more about them.
Because these characters are well-developed with admirable characteristics and some flaws, the reader will have a hard time picking any one to be a bad person. This is even true for the two fathers – Eddie’s and Kelli’s father, who attacked Eddie when he found out his daughter was pregnant.
Hopefully, I have not given away too much of this story because one has to read every word to get all that a reader should get from this book. It is one of the few books I have received that I have read more than once and that is why this review is later than what I promised to the author – I had to read it a second time before writing this so that I could fully digest this excellent story.
I wish to thank the author for providing a review copy of the book. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
February 22, 2022
This was a sort of realistic fairy tale about baseball. I ended up truly enjoying the story and the characters. However, without a personal recommendation from a friend I trust, I would not have finished the book if I'd picked it up and read the first few chapters. The first chunk was so specifically, technically, baseball-heavy, that I expected that for the rest of the book. I love baseball and can plow through specifics and envision what's going on with the best of sports readers, but I didn't want a whole book of what I thought I was getting in the beginning of the story. Still, by a few more chapters in, I was entirely hooked and ended up loving the characters and rooting for most of them. The author believes in hope and in unsavory people's ability for reform, which is refreshing. However, I feel as if this book could have benefited from a savvy editor's read. I see why it's self-published, and although parts of it require a suspension of disbelief, I still loved it and it stuck with me after I finished. And I read it in three days! That's another recommendation.
November 14, 2020
This is a baseball book. BUT... It's really more a book about family relationships. I highly recommend this book for when you need a good, wholesome read. You will know people like the characters and be able to identify with them. Loved the fun read!
December 18, 2024
What a perfect gem of a book - small town life beautifully captured through the eyes of a family you’d be honored to be a part of. I was hooked from the beginning, and now I can’t wait to read the next one.
June 24, 2021
Beautiful story of love, heartbreak, triumph, courage, and forgiveness. All while being funny too. Can't wait for the sequel!
August 22, 2021
Super cute read. Loved the Audible!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews