Flat broke with two goats A memoir

Going from a Cape Cod cottage in the North Carolina suburbs to a rustic cabin in the Appalachian woods was no easy task for McGaha. When the Great Recession brought the IRS knocking on her door, demanding years' worth of back taxes, McGaha's world collapsed. Forced to foreclose on their charming home, Jennifer and her husband relocated with their children to a distant cousin's ancient shack in the woods not far from their home. Trying times ensued, with McGaha and her family dealing with a mice infestation, learning how to care for farm animals, and surviving a venomous snake appearance. But the experience allowed Jennifer to uncover the truth about her family's financial crisis and embrace the grief of losing a beloved grandparent. McGaha takes readers on emotional explorations of both finding oneself and recapturing lost love in a marriage. An easy read with a warm tone, like hearing from an old friend, McGaha's memoir is touching, funny, and hard to put down.--Chesanek, Carissa Copyright 2017 Booklist

A couple's massive tax debt leads them to move to a cabin in the North Carolina woods.McGaha began not with a romantic desire to return to the wild but with a foreclosure on the suburban house she and her accountant husband were buying from friends and a bill from the IRS for unreported back taxes in the six-figure range. Her determinedly upbeat memoir follows the couple and their dogs to a run-down cabin in the mountains of western North Carolina. The setting was idyllic, but for someone used to the pleasures of upper-middle-class living, the housing situation was less than ideal. The house, filled with the "thick, pungent odor" of mold, had green camouflage carpet "on the ceiling," a barely functioning bathroom, countless mice, and a constant influx of snakes attracted by those mice. McGaha gradually forgave her husband for lying to her about their financial situation, and she achieved some happiness with the purchase of a few goats and chickens. She learned how to make goat cheese and breed the goats, with a few misadventures along the way. While she describes her experiences with the animals in vivid detail, the narrative often rambles. A long section about her life with her abusive first husband seems to have been shoehorned in, and she glosses over some of the deeper problems the author and her husband created for themselves, their college-aged children, and their friends. Many of the recipes that conclude the chapters are not detailed enough to be useful, particularly the one for Crock-Pot goat milk soap, which involves "9.56 ounces 100 percent pure lye" and some unspecified "protective gear." The book also includes a reading group guide.McGaha offers plenty of detail about life with a tiny herd of goats, but readers will finish the book with more knowledge about the outer lives of the chickens, goats, and dogs than the inner lives of their human owners. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.