Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good (Mitford Years #10)
by Jan Karon
4.21 of 5 stars
4.21 · rating details · 5,660 ratings · 1,244 reviews 23
After five hectic years of retirement from Lord’s Chapel, Father Tim Kavanagh returns with his wife, Cynthia, from a so-called pleasure trip to the land of his Irish ancestors.
While glad to be at home in Mitford, something is definitely missing: a pulpit. But when he’s offered one, he decides he doesn’t want it. Maybe he’s lost his passion.
His adopted son, Dooley, wrestles with his own passion—for the beautiful and gifted Lace Turner, and his vision to become a successful country vet. Dooley’s brother, Sammy, still enraged by his mother’s abandonment, destroys one of Father Tim’s prized possessions. And Hope Murphy, owner of Happy Endings bookstore, struggles with the potential loss of her unborn child and her hard-won business.
All this as Wanda’s Feel Good Café opens, a romance catches fire through an Internet word game, their former mayor hatches a reelection campaign to throw the bums out, and the weekly Muse poses a probing inquiry: Does Mitford still take care of its own?
Millions of fans will applaud the chance to spend time, once more, in the often comic and utterly human presence of Jan Karon’s characters. Indeed, they have never been more sympathetic, bighearted, and engaging.



Born Janice Meredith Wilson in 1937, Jan Karon was raised on a farm near Lenoir, North Carolina. Karon knew at a very early age that she wanted to be a writer. She penned her first novel when she was 10 years old, the same year she won a short-story contest organized by the local high school. Karon married as a teenager and had a daughter, Candace.

At 18, Karon began working as a receptionist for a Charlotte, N.C. advertising agency. She advanced in the company after leaving samples of her writing on the desk of her boss, who eventually noticed her talent. Karon went on to have a highly successful career in the field, winning awards for ad agencies from Charlotte to San Francisco. In time, she became a creative vice president at the high-profile McKinney & Silver, in Raleigh. While there, she won the prestigious Stephen Kelly Award, with which the Magazine Publishers of America honor the year's best print campaign.

During her years in advertising, Karon kept alive her childhood ambition to be an author. At the age of 50, she left her career in advertising and moved to Blowing Rock, North Carolina, to pursue that dream. After struggling—and failing—to get a novel underway, Karon awoke one night with a mental image of an Episcopal priest walking down a village street. She grew curious about him, and started writing. Soon, Karon was publishing weekly installments about Father Tim in her local newspaper, The Blowing Rocket, which saw its circulation double as a result. "It certainly worked for Mr. Dickens", says Karon.