Cheryl Blaydon’s novel is a very real story

When I picked up Cheryl Blaydon’s novel, Dancing at the Colony, published by North Country Press, and discovered it was all about a wedding, I wasn’t sure I would like it. But I did, and here’s why.

Cheryl’s characters are very real, both good and bad, and their stories quickly interested me, including the deep friendships and irritating relatives. My favorite characters were Ellis, planning her second wedding after divorcing her first husband, and her close friend and grandmother Hazel, who is terribly depressed by the death of her husband and something else I don’t want to give away.

I also loved that Cheryl puts her story in some of my favorite places in Maine, especially Boothbay Harbor, a place Linda and I loved and where we wrote travel columns about many inns and restaurants as well as the amazing Botanical Gardens. Cheryl’s description of the ocean puts you right there in the ocean spray.

I can’t give away the ending, but I do guarantee you will enjoy the trail that takes you there.

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.