Title: Making Arrangements
Author: Brent Eliot Parker
Publisher: Sunstone Press
ISBN: 9780865349827
Pages: 216, Paperback/Kindle
Genre: Fiction
Reviewed by: Ella Vincent, Pacific Book Review
Book Review
Making Arrangements is a moving novel about the personal and professional aspects of the funeral industry. Brent Eliot Parker has written a novel that sheds lights on a little-known industry and illustrates how family and loyalty can impact a person’s life.Making Arrangements tells the story of Colin Madsen, an accountant who returns to his small New England hometown after the death of his father. Colin’s faced with the dilemma of whether to take over his father’s financially troubled funeral home or return to his life in Boston. His decision is further complicated by falling in love with his childhood friend Ava, who works for a corporate funeral chain that threatens to put Colin’s funeral home out of business.
Parker’s family works in the funeral home business and Parker himself still owns part of his family funeral home. His experience in the industry shows in the details about the specific aspects of the funeral home business and mortuary science. The novel also shows how funeral home directors, especially Colin and his staff, take a vulnerable time in a family’s life and show the utmost care and sensitivity. Colin is a complex character who is dutiful to his father’s legacy and wants to save the funeral home, but has his own ideas about how he will achieve success and happiness in his life.
While the book takes on serious themes like business and death, Making Arrangements also has light and heartfelt moments in the book as well. Colin’s relationship with the staff, especially Amos, his avuncular employee, is an enduring relationship that readers will love. His romantic relationship with Ava takes many twists and turns that will surprise readers throughout the novel. Ava is a sensitive, but driven character that makes her more than just the passive girlfriend in the book. The setting of Concord, Massachusetts adds to the small-town charm of the novel as well.
The novel would be perfect for Millennial or Generation X readers who are struggling to find their own identity while staying loyal to their family obligations. Even baby boomer readers who are established in their lives will find insight from this book. Making Arrangements is also a novel that would be a great addition to a reader’s adult fiction collection. The themes of loyalty, family, and love make this story one that should appeal to a wide range of readers. Making Arrangements is a thoughtful and inspiring book that readers will definitely enjoy.
