Last One Home by Debbie Macomber

I dreaded reading this book.  I thought the beginning was a little dull and a little stilted.  But long before I reached the end of the book, I felt as though I'd had the experience that makes Debbie Macomber the focus of such devoted fandom.

Cassie is a woman who's left a dangerously abusive marriage.  With the help of a women's shelter, she's gained skills as a hair stylist and has moved back to Washington state from Florida.

While she was married, her husband controlled her actions and movements, and she was not able to attend either the funeral of her father, or that of her mother (who died after she left her husband, but before she had any money to travel back to Washington).

Now she's working on building her clientele as a hairdresser, caring for her daughter, and volunteering to help other abused women.  She becomes involved with Habitat for Humanity, and she soon has the opportunity to use "sweat equity" to get a real house for herself and her daughter.

She has not seen either of her two sisters since she married her husband.  At the time she married, she was only eighteen, pregnant, and both her parents and both her sisters opposed her marriage.

A wrinkle develops when her Habitat for Humanity supervisor takes one look at her and decides that her long fingernails probably mean that she isn't a very good worker.  Another develops when her sister, who lives several hours away, offers Cassie furniture from their parents' home.  The furniture is in storage, and the sister only wants to pay for another month.  Cassie is desperate to have the furniture, not just because she has no furniture and no money to buy any, but because it's a link to the past and the family that she lost when she married her husband.

The novel is about reconciliation and healing and this is a frequent theme in women's fiction.  I can't help thinking that lack of reconciliation is an issue in the lives of many, and that that is the explanation for its lasting popularity as a theme.