Down At The Devlin Bakery
A Novel
"You know you’re not alone, when you wake to the scent of fresh baked goods."
Marion Devlin’s world is about to change. Marion no longer has the strength or energy to operate her multi-generational family bakery. Closing its doors is her only option, as her two daughters have no interest in becoming the next generation to run the family business. Growing older and tired, Marion must leave Martinsville, Illinois, to live with one of her daughters for what she assumes will be the rest of her life. She has many misgivings about this decision, but clearly, it is her only option. Her decision leaves the little mid-western town of Martinsville without its signature bakery, the anchor where the townsfolk once gathered and connected. And it triggers a sequence of events that forever change the lives of many.
“Brilliantly written, first-time Author, Ms. Goodacre, has done her homework. Down At The Devlin Bakery is full of intriguing, easy-to-visualize characters skillfully depicted by Ms. Goodacre. She ably transports the reader into small-town Middle America and brings it to life. Her well-crafted scenes are among the best I have read.”
J. Moore
Down At The Devlin Bakery is inspired by the small midwestern town of Martinsville, Illinois, and its family-owned bakery passed down from generation to generation. The Devlin Bakery did exist; it opened in the late 1890s and closed when the last Devlin family retired in 1974 and moved to Arizona.
Ms. Goodacre’s imaginative book is fictional, set in the post-war 1940s. The book weaves a story of the shuttered bakery, enriched by believable characters and how the townspeople reconnect when retired farmers Thomas and Ella Watson reopen the bakery in 1948.
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