At Home on Ladybug Farm

By Donna Ball
Berkley, $14.00, 352 pages

Donna Bell returns with this powerful sequel to “A Year on Ladybug Farm,” expanding on the intertwining personalities of Cici, Lindsay, and Bridget, this second book digs deep into the history and soul of the Shenandoah Valley and the run-down mansion the ladies have begun to call their home. Realizing that Ladybug Farm was once a boarding house for military wives in the forties, readers venture into the heart of the tale clearly centered on a house filled with women— their individual insecurities, passions, fears, and truths but still unequivocally reliant on one another for the ultimate renovation at hand: themselves.

Going through every room in the one-hundred year old house and claiming spaces for themselves, Lindsay planned to turn the dairy barn into an art studio and Bridget’s long ago dream of owning a restaurant would lead her to cultivating a garden whereas Cici’s building escapades would be the glue that keeps everything together, this narrative is filled with probing questions about what really constitutes a functioning household: physical location or real-life inhabitants? When is an actual house a home?

Reviewed by Erienne Rojas