Book Review: Feels Like Falling

Author: Kristy Woodson Harvey
Title: Feels Like Falling
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publish Date: April 28, 2020
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: It’s summertime on the North Carolina coast and the livin’ is easy.

Unless, that is, you’ve just lost your mother to cancer, your sister to her extremist husband, and your husband to his executive assistant. Meet Gray Howard. Right when Gray could use a serious infusion of good karma in her life, she inadvertently gets a stranger, Diana Harrington, fired from her job at the local pharmacy.

Diana Harrington’s summer isn’t off to the greatest start either: Hours before losing her job, she broke up with her boyfriend and moved out of their shared house with only a worn-out Impala for a bed. Lucky for her, Gray has an empty guest house and a very guilty conscience.

With Gray’s kindness, Diana’s tide begins to turn. But when her first love returns, every secret from her past seems to resurface all at once. And, as Gray begins to blaze a new trail, she discovers, with Diana’s help, that what she envisioned as her perfect life may not be what she wants at all.

In her warmest, wisest novel yet, Kristy Woodson Harvey delivers a discerning portrait of modern womanhood through two vastly different lenses. Feels Like Falling is a beach bag essential for Harvey fans—and for a new generation of readers.

Review: For a person who has never traveled further than WV when it comes to heading south, I go there in books quite often, and definitely more so in summer "beach reads" season.

I have a lot of go to authors when it comes to Southern fiction. Kristy Woodson Harvey is going to fill the gap left when Dorothea Benton Frank passed away.

Feels Like Falling is just the kind of book that makes you feel good, even if things aren't going quite right for the characters.

Gray is a soon to be divorced woman trying to find her way and who inadvertently is the person that casts the final straw in Diana's employment at a local pharmacy.

The two women who couldn't be much more different come together and help put each other's lives back in order. Usually in stories, like these, I find I like one character much more than the other, but really, here, I loved both women.

I loved Gray and I loved how she fretted about dating the younger (by 8ish years) Andrew. I loved that she was desperately trying to be a good mom and was putting her child first. I also loved all her friends.

But then there's Diana. The world wasn't treating her right, but she managed. She still had dreams, when most of us would give up on them. She was a "carer" and I could so identify with that part of her personality.

As she navigates her new job and friendship and the return of people from her past, you couldn't help but love her. She was so real. She was so deserving of something that would go right for her.

This book was wonderful and I read it slowly because I really didn't want it to end. I'd love for Kristy to revisit these characters at some later date, because I want to see how their lives progressed.

Rating: 5 flowers