Author Laura McNeal speaks at the Fallbrook Book Club

FALLBROOK – The Fallbrook Book Club met with prize-winning author Laura McNeal of Coronado Jan. 25 to discuss her newest historical novel titled, "The Practice Room." Her sister-in-law Susan McNeal of Fallbrook introduced her to the dozen members attending.

The book is set in the 1930s first in Kansas during the deadly dust storms on the prairie and later in the lush farmlands and fruit farms of Fallbrook. McNeal said the book's title also refers to every house the female characters live in as they try to obtain and keep their own homes and families – and try to find and make their place in the world.

A 19-year-old Aldine McKenna is stuck at home with her sister and aunt in a Scottish village in 1929 when two Mormon missionaries ring the doorbell.

Aldine's sister converts and moves to America to marry and Aldine follows, hoping to find the life she's meant to lead and the person she's meant to love. In New York, Aldine answers an advertisement soliciting for a teacher for a one-room schoolhouse in a place she can't possibly imagine – drought-stricken Kansas.

She arrives as farms on the Great Plains have begun to fail, and schools are going bankrupt, unable to pay or house new teachers. With no money and too much pride to turn back, she lives uneasily with the family of Ansel Price – the charming, optimistic man who placed the ad – and his family responds to her with kindness, curiosity, suspicion and love.

"The Practice House" is an actual building in Fallbrook that was constructed in the 30s to help teach girls what parents feared was a dying art even then: homemaking. The structure is still standing, located in the old school house site across from the Boys & Girls Club of North County.

McNeal spoke about the research and work that went into writing the book, which took more than six years, but also the effort and financing required for publishing and marketing a book.

Courtesy photo: Prize-winning author Laura McNeal of Coronado, right, poses with her historical novel, "The Practice Room," and her sister-in-law, Susan McNeal of Fallbrook, Thursday, Jan. 25, during the Fallbrook Book Club meeting.