Absolutely delightful!! A wonderfully rich book with hilarious moments and geniunly sad moments. One particular part featuring an uncle with one good eye totally undid me on a crowded subway. I had to explain and highly recommend this title to my puzzled fellow riders. The K's need their own series. I am an avid reader and have not come upon something this refreshing and enjoyable for quite awhile. I can go on and on.....loved it!

This book was a nice blend of current day life and past day Southern roots and traditions. The main character, Katie-Lee or Katherine as she is called in her New York life, finds out that her sister Karen-Anne has been injured via a Facebook post by one of her co-workers. The story weaves on that Katie-Lee left Louisiana and hasn't really looked back. She is friends with family on Facebook, some relatives she hasn't even met in person. You can sense that she is trying so hard to leave her old life in the shadows. But when Katie-Lee receives word from another sister that Karen-Anne has passed away, she needs to return home and confront all the things she is trying so hard to forget.

Katie-Lee is the 4th of 5 children, the youngest of which has passed away as well. You spend most of the novel aware of the fact that he died but unaware of the circumstances. She only stays in touch with one sister, Kendra-Sue, and you get the sense that this isn't by choice. It is Kendra-Sue that alerts her of her sister's death. When she returns home, she re-enters her family unit, meeting all those relatives she has only seen on social media and is forced to confront why she left in the first place.

This book didn't make me laugh or cry, but had true emotion behind each character and situation. I think anyone who has siblings (which I don't, so I am speculating here) will be able to relate to the banter, the struggles, and the emotions between Katie-Lee and her brother/sisters. The secondary characters of the story, her friends from New York, add their own spin to the story and are her "family" as well. Everything comes together in the last 10% of the book, and you then really realize the complexity and emotion behind Katie-Lee's keeping her distance from her past.

I can personally relate to this story on some level and completely understand Katie-Lee's desire to maintain her distance from a place that carries hurtful memories and reminds her of harder times. All in all, this was a well put together novel about family bonds and never forgetting your roots.

Recommended For: Fans of women's fiction, tales set in the South. Anyone with a dysfunctional family!

This great summer read, with a likeable, completely identifiable 50-year old woman, was written by a — what? A 41 year old GUY? (I even double-checked, thinking that “Ken” might be short for Kendra or something.) But Ken it is, and he definitely gets it right.

Sweet As Cane is about family, and avoidance, and painful pasts, and perfectly captures the fears and doubts that go along with reaching a certain age. It's a definite thumbs up, and I'm looking forward to checking into Wheaton's earlier stuff. ...now if I could just stop thinking about Popeye’s chicken...

This book - it had me smiling at the Prologue. I went into it not knowing what to expect. Katie-Lee (or Katherine to her New York office colleagues) has left Louisiana behind after a family tragedy to work for a magazine in NYC. Addicted to facebook, she uses it as her only real means of keeping tabs on her family, mainly her sisters. When someone posts a link about an accident involving a Rhino and a Louisiana vet, Katie-Lee is stunned to find that the vet is her younger sister, Karen-Anne. Forcing her to face her past, Katie-Lee has to conquer her demons and head back home.

I can't believe this was written by a man. Can NOT believe it. Katie-Lee is so real, so warm, so fragile (yet so strong), so loveable - this book is a gorgeous read. The author makes both Louisiana and New York City jump off the page. I've never been to either place, but by the end, I felt like I had. The way Katie-Lee and her sister Kendra-Sue interact is so familiar to anyone who's ever had a bit of family drama - some of their spats had me in tears laughing.

Loved, loved this book. Sincere thanks to the publishers & author for granting my request to read it.

This book had me hooked by the end of the Prologue. I was so surprised that the author (a male) was so in tune with the thinkings of a 50 something year old woman. Even though I'm of a younger generation, Katie-Lee's addiction to social media hit home for me, and I think is so relevant to so many readers today. Even though it was a classic striking out on her own in the big city and keeping her family at a distance, this book felt original and refreshing. the characters were real and well developed for a shorter book, I really felt the hardships the different women (and her brother in the war) went through. This book has great heart and I think anyone with familial difficulties or feel distant from their siblings will enjoy and relate to this book.

A novel that demonstrates the strength of family ties, especially sisterhood, despite the passing of time and tragedy. Highly recommend!

Sweet as Cane, Salty as Tears by Ken Wheaton is a coming of age and coming to terms tale set in New York City and South Louisiana. However, there is a very different twist in that the age is 50 and the coming to terms is looking at a lifetime of running away from ghosts when the specters only dwelled in a shattered heart. This story is of love, loss, and a lifetime of "what ifs?"

In a dead end job and an uninteresting time of life, Katherine is pondering strange dreams and a broken past, when in the course of a week major changes occur in her life and how she has viewed the world since her one-way ticket to New York City leaving her family behind in southern Louisiana. What she does and how she copes becomes the vehicle for the telling of this novel.

This is a poignant narrative in which Ken Wheaton has beautifully crafted Katherine's journey from what she thought to what she learned about herself and those closest to her. His ability to capture the thoughts and feelings of his main character are uncanny. His use of the internet, and Facebook in particular, are a special demonstration on how being connected to others is so important for humans, and how it can also tear them apart.

The novel should come with a warning:"If you don't appreciate the South, don't read this book." However, anyone with an appreciation of Southern idiosyncrasies will end up rolling on the floor with laughter. And where did Ken Wheaton pick up the nuances of a daughter of the South who would rather be anywhere else than Broussard, La.? Katherine Fontenot has become a New Yorker, leaving her bayou roots and family far behind. That is until a black rhino escape from the Broussard and kills her sister. Fontenot has to return to her Cajun past, complete with double-name siblings, beer drinking, fishing and hunting. Wheaton's novel is written with humor without malice or insult to life among the Spanish moss. A fun read - perfect for the beach or vacation.

Anyone who has left the South, especially Louisiana, and felt that familiar tug of wanting to return, and not being able to find a decent crawfish boil, will be able to instantly relate to this book! Course post-Katrina, your odds are better nationwide, but it's still a chore! Ken knows his Louisiana- his characters tread nuances of good and bad, of city and country, of religious and 'lost'. If you have family in the South, you will instantly recognize characters from the family tree and surrounding fields, the subtle shades of civility, like the funeral wake meal of Popeye's chicken, sausage, deli platters and cakes from Walmart, or arriving at the airport and taking a rental car and your family asking which way you are traveling home, and then telling you you took the long way when you get there. If you live in the South, you just nodded your head and smiled, because you've been there, you've eaten those foods/had that conversation! Ken calls eating your 'weight in Popeye's' the first stage of grief in Louisiana. The second stage is doing the same with boudin (sausage)-though different areas change that to jambalaya or the proverbial funeral ham. the third stage involves meeting waves of friends and family members, all trying to figure out when the lat time you met, or how you are related!

The tale is enriched and guided by the Southern codes and norms- you sense the things that are coming, but you can't put the book down you are so enraptured in the tale. The story is more than just a tale of coming home, you are forever changed when you leave. The person who comes home is not the same. Sometimes for the good, sometimes not. Like dominoes, the leaving affects those who stay in ways that are never shared with the one who left. It is a story of family, of trust, of finding what matters most in your heart of hearts. You'll find yourself laughing at the last line, smiling and wishing for more adventures with the Fontenot family. Ken has created a jewel of a novel, that you won't soon forget. If there is one book you read that I have recommended, make it THIS one!

I knew when I saw this cover with what appeared to be a Steen's can on the cover, that I would have to read it! I really liked this story about Katie Lee who fled Louisiana at the age of 20 after an unspeakable tragedy, only to find herself home after another tragedy 30 years later. Her reflection on her life at 50...her relationship (or lack of) with her family...her friends...I liked it all. This book paints an accurate portrait of a people and place, but the story could have taken place in any small town anywhere in America.

"I'm so glad you came," Sonny says after his crying tapers off to a manageable whimper. "Karen-Anne always said one of 'em would have to die to get you back here for something other than Christmas."

Katie-Lee Fontenot aka Katherine to her New York friends and co-workers is surfing the web and checking Facebook same as the others in a meeting while some of the managers are discussing something among themselves when the electronic discussion among her co-workers turns to a zoo worker who was trampled by a black rhino down in Louisiana. At first Katie-Lee is going along with the jokes, until she reads the name of the woman hurt, Karen-Anne Castille - her baby sister.

She has made up her mind to go see her when her older sister, Kendra-Sue, tells her to get her butt on down there because now it's a funeral. So, Katie-Lee returns to Louisiana to face her family without the aid of modern medicine (Xanax, Lexapro, etc.).

Katie-Lee is a protagonist well worth reading about. She is 50 years old and single with all that entails. The company she works for is facing lay offs/ staff reductions. She comes across as a pretty real woman dealing with some real modern day problems.

Then we are transported to her family life, which like many a family life is a little weirder than life away from home. It's touching and funny. You feel for her and her siblings. And maybe there's a time or two where you might be tempted to knock heads, but that will pass.

It's a really good story and it's very well written. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

If you are interested in Cajun words and phrases such as those used in the book, Ken Wheaton has written at least 2 blog posts on them. Talkin' Funny: Louisiana Style and Even More Talkin' Funny: Louisiana Style

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

A version of this review appeared on Goodreads.com at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/989789737

And at Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/review/RM5GYVHUTYYJO/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

A hilarious look at sobering topics. As an outsider who's lived in Louisiana for 12 years, I can see pieces of people I know reflected in the story. I laughed and cried and cringed throughout the story. There wasn't a page where I didn't feel a part of the story. It's not a book for my students, but I will recommend it to my friends.

Absolutely wonderful !!!! I LOVE Seeet as Kane, Salty as Tears...... By Ken Wheaton is an amazing, sweet, poignant, salty, sassy read. You don't want this book to end. Beautifully done.

A warm, engaging, reflective and at times heart-breakingly accurate journey home, both literally and emotionally, for a 50 year old Louisiana woman living in New York City. One of 4 sisters and 6 total siblings raised first on a subsistence farm and then just barely closer to town before leaving Louisiana when she was 20 years old, the protagonist weaves tales from her youth with stories from her arrival in New York City. This is a wonderful book that is difficult to put down and well worth reading. Memorable and delightful!

This wonderfully funny,heartfelt southern to the core book puts you right in the bayou. The characters are quirky southern with a returning sister coming out of New York to return to her home. It has family drama with southern vernacular fun. Cajun culture and all its charms with a dose of a dysfunctional family. Grab a sweet tea and settle in for a great read. This reader read it in one sitting. Well written to capture every readers attention.

I didn't know what I'd think of this book; I'm not from the South (I'm from North and South Dakota, which is about as far North as you can go without stepping into Canada!) and I am an only child. This book is about a big family of Cajuns--wasn't sure what I'd relate to. I'm happy to report that the writing is vibrant and this story is nuanced and full.

The main character, Katie-Lee, has lived in New York for the past 20 years. She fled her family, her past, and her home and has basically turned her back on everything. She Facebook stalks her family, but that's about as close as she gets. When her younger sister gets into an accident, she's forced to confront everything she left behind. This would make a delightful movie, IMO. :)

This is another book who’s cover intrigued me! I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by it’s cover, but sometimes others just stand out and call to you. After reading the book review by Sharon from Miss Green Eyes, I decided to give it a whirl.

Katherine 50, divorced, lives in New York and has a job in media. But Katherine, or Katie-Lee, is still hiding from her Cajun roots, despite being in New York for about 30 years. Katie-Lee avoids Louisiana and her family as much as she can, choosing to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas abroad as often as she can. But when Facebook addicted Katie-Lee sees a story about how her younger sister has been seriously injured by a rampant rhino, she has to face up to her family (especially her strong willed older sister Kendra-Sue) and the demons she left behind when she ran away from Louisiana.

I really liked this book, it’s a slow build and it jumps back and forth between the past and the present, slowly building up to the story of why Katie-Lee left Louisiana 30 years ago. I did guess what happened before finding out, but I didn’t mind that as I liked the narration and the characters. I like how Wheaton uses Cajun words and sayings when Katie-Lee and her family are talking (but how Katherine doesn’t when she’s with her New York friends!), it added to the characters. Katie-Lee is one of 6 and coming from a big family myself, I liked seeing the large family dynamic pan out. This book certainly has some funny moments, but I wouldn’t classify it as a comedy. It’s sort of a coming of age novel for a 50 year old, if that makes sense? Coming to terms with the past, trying to figure out what to do with the future but also trying to cope in the present. I guess we’re all trying to cope with those situations in a way but what I liked was the fact the protaganist is 50 years old, it’s refreshing to have characters slightly older and to see that they can feel the same way as you do in your 20s. I especially liked the relationship between Katie-Lee and Kendra-Sue. They seem like the strongest out of the 4 sisters, essentially both sides of the coin who’s lives turned out differently, Katie-Lee escaping her small hometown to live it up in the Big Apple, while Kendra-Sue becoming a teenage mother, living in a trailer and never venturing much outside Louisiana.

I definitely recommend giving this book a go, it’s another quick read that I finished in a day. I found it entertaining and at times even a bit heart breaking. And from the looks of other reviews, if you have Southern roots, then you’ll definitely appreciate this book!