Book Review: Mitford Series by Jan Karon

WAHOO! I finally did it. I finished all nine books in this series!
They are:
At Home in Mitford
A Light in the Window
These High, Green Hills
Out to Caanan
A New Song
A Common Life
In This Mountain
Shepherds Abiding
Light From Heaven
I must confess, I got the 6th book in the series on tape before I knew it was a series. However, chronologically, it's the 3rd book. Make sense?
I'll explain. These books revolve around the life and escapades of an Episcopal Priest, Father Tim, in Mitford, North Carolina. He's used to leading a simple, bachelor life until a woman, Cynthia Coppersmith moves in next door. He starts to fall in love, which is something he thought he'd never do. He aquires a boy and a dog, two things he thought he'd never have. He ponders getting married, something else he never thought he'd do.
Meanwhile, through all this pondering, falling in love and aquiring, we are introduced to a wonderful little town, full of many wonderful people. We meet Miss Sadie Baxter, Dooley Barlowe, Uncle Billy, Miss Rose, Mule Skinner, JC Hogan, Esther Cunningham, Emma Newland, Puny Guthrie, and Hoppy Harper, just to name a few. We get to eat at the Main Street Grill, buy clothes with Father Tim at the Collar Button, shop at the Local and get tires at Lew Boyd's Exxon. There are laughs along the way and some small mysteries to be solved. As always, as in life, some people die, some people move, some people disappoint you and some people change for the better. However, Mitford sure seems like a wonderful place to live and even to visit for a bit in a book.
My favorites of the series were At Home in Mitford, A Common Life and Shepherds Abiding. None of them are BAD, but there were two that were kind of hard to get through. A Light in the Window is written a lot through letters, which got kind of hard. I had to get the CDs for that one in order to finish. Then A New Song, which I did enjoy very much, was kind of hard since Father Tim and Cynthia are not in Mitford and I found I kind of missed that. We get a whole new batch of characters and it was kind of hard to keep track of at times. I had to leave that one and come back to it a few months later. But like I said, none of them were bad enough to stop me from reading.
I have to say that I am looking forward to reading Karon's most recent novel, "Home to Holly Springs". I love the character of Father Tim. He's very kind and benevolent, but he's real enough to not come off as a preachy saint. I understand that his wife, Cynthia, isn't in the most recent book, which is a good thing for me. She can be whiney and bratty at times, or at least that's the feeling I get from her. Mostly it's OK, but at times I want to kind of throttle her.
Anyway, if you are going to delve into this series, I'd tell you there is little to no bad language. Certainly not anything you wouldn't hear on TV. That's a huge plus for me. There is nothing graphic in the book at all, no sex, no violence. It's pretty much plain goodness. One kind of annoying thing is that Karon tends to leave situaions unresolved until a future book. However, most if not all the situations do get resolved. I can say I highly recommend this series. It's not what I'd call fast paced or really exciting, but they are good to read. I think that it's taken me 2 years + to get all 9 of them read, because I didn't do them one right after the other. It's easy to leave and come back to when you're ready, which is nice. So, if you're looking for something like that, I highly recommend this series!