Something's Leaking Upstairs by Willma Willis Gore

About the book

Something's Leaking Upstairs is the hilarious story of Claire, a California-born journalist, and her British husband, George, who leave their professional careers in Orange county to follow George's dream of owning a mini-ranch in the San Joaquin Valley. It's supposed to be their ticket to freedom and travel. But it doesn't quite turn out that way.

While her husband loves ranch life, Claire is quickly disenchanted by plugged-up septic systems, a piglet who thinks George is her mother, a pair of wayward calves, and a string of zany tenants who come to live in the rental properties George keeps buying. What she thought was going to free them to travel turns out to tie them down. George eventually buys a travel trailer to placate her, but immediately rents it to his British relatives.

The tenant disaster that gives Something's Leaking Upstairs its title, results in Claire leaving the ranch and returning temporarily to her old job in the city. Although she thrives on the work, it doesn't take her long to realize how much she misses George and the clean, clear air of the country.

In the end, with a lot of ingenuity and a little bit of compromise, George and Claire figure out a way to have it all.

About the author

Willma Gore grew up on a small ranch at the foot of the California High Sierra. She sold her first major article at 20 -- an account of a 350-mile bicycle trip with her college girlfriend. Since then, she has published hundreds of travel articles, essays, profiles and short stories as well as 19 children's books. A how-to book, Just Pencil Me In -- Your Guide to Moving & Getting Settled (based on Gore's 20 moves in 40 years) was released by Quill Driver Books in 2002.

Something's Leaking Upstairs, her first novel, is based on the hilarious true-life misadventures of a city girl who joins her British husband in his dream of owning a California mini-ranch. The story has the small-town feeling of Jan Karon's Mitford series and the humor of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. A sequel is in the works.

Along with rearing eight children, Gore worked as manager of publications for a California chamber of commerce and was writer for seven books on Southern California cities. She holds a BA from UCLA.

Gore was named California's Communicator of Distinction at the conference of National Federation of Press Women in 1989, and has won a number of Press Women and California Writers Club awards.

She currently lives on the Central California Coast. In addition to working with writer groups, she is a sought-after public speaker. She is a member of California Writer's Club, WIN/WIN, and San Luis Obispo Night Writers for which she leads two workshops.