This author captures rural Maine and its entertaining characters

Mayo Mills could be any rural Maine town. In Legends Of Mayo Mills, Madeira Starling has captured Maine’s small towns with a series of very entertaining stories which are fiction, but will feel very real if you live in a small Maine town.

From the village that sits on a small lake, to the wild animal kingdom where the lions roar, this might just be my town of Mount Vernon. Some of the characters certainly seemed like people I know.

Benny and his friend are the focus of most of the stories as they scrounge for work and enjoy lots of adventures, some of which I’ve enjoyed too, like searching for old bottles in abandoned dumps.

There’s even some magic along with philosophy and dangerous situations, but it’s the oddball characters I most enjoyed, and yes, we have those in Mount Vernon!

The beautiful artwork on the front cover, also done by the author, will grab your attention, but once you start reading, you will not stop. Luckily the book is relatively short, at 84 pages, so I could read it in one evening. Chances are, though, that I will read it one more time before passing it on to Linda and other family members.

You can purchase the book at www.piccalillipress.com.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.