Literary Guild main selection Reader's Digest Condensed Book. Light on plot, and lacking a dashing romantic hero (Kenny is nicey-niceness personified), this novel succeeds on Spencer's talent for making the inevitable entertaining. In an ending that is pure fantasy, everybody's dreams come true-including those of the phenomenally talented and lucky Casey. Easily resolving the quandary of how a small-town mortal might fit into a superstar's life, Spencer promotes Kenny to the position of Tess's money manager. When it's time to return to Nashville, she realizes she loves him. The girl helps Tess write a song about the difficulties of returning home, while Kenny continues to annoy with his constant good deeds-that is, until Tess at last notes that Kenny is disturbingly attractive. Kenny, but she can't help adoring his daughter, Casey, a teenage tomboy with a gravelly singing voice. But Kenny, who lives across the alley and faithfully cares for Tess's mom, isn't at all impressed. Eighteen years ago, Tess McPhail left her tiny hometown of Wintergreen, Missouri for the bright lights of Nashville and never looked back. When her older sisters demand that she spend four weeks in Wintergreen, Mo., helping their mother recover from hip-replacement surgery, Tess blows into town with a chip on her shoulder, expecting to be treated like the star she is. In one of her most unforgettable novels, New York Times bestselling author LaVyrle Spencer chronicles the passionate awakening of a country music star who embraced fame but fled from love. Make room on bestseller lists for Spencer's latest heart-warmer about unlikely romance, this time between country-western star Tess McPhail and her old schoolmate Kenny Kronek, formally 'a dork of the highest magnitude,' now an accountant.

Small Town Girl by LaVyrle Spencer