Review: Feels Like Falling by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Title: Feels Like Falling

Author: Kristy Woodson Harvey

Published: April 2020, Gallery Books

Format: ARC Paperback, 400 pages

Source: Author

Summary: 

From “the next major
voice in Southern fiction” (Elin Hilderbrand) and the bestselling author
of the Peachtree Bluff series comes an odd-couple tale of friendship
that asks just how much our past choices define our happiness.

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.

My thoughts: Have
I mentioned how much I adore Kristy Woodson Harvey yet? Have you had a
chance to meet her in person? She is just as sweet and charming as you
can imagine and if you’ve had a chance to read her books yet, you can
definitely see her personality dripping off the pages. This is why I adore
her books and why I jump at the opportunity to read and support
her – she is good people, folks and she is truly a talented author. She
will make you laugh and she will make you cry and by the time you finish
one of her books, you will feel hope and compassion like no one else
has made you feel.

One of my favorite aspects of Kristy’s writing is her ability to create characters that you are immediately drawn to. She  allows us to see the perfectly imperfect world of her characters, real women that any of us can relate to and I think that’s what makes it so readable. You will fall in love with them right from the start, cheering at their successes, cringing at their missteps, and feeling humbled by their hardships. But what is so remarkable is that while these two women, who are not at all the same, go through their own experiences, they end up realizing just how much they are alike and how much they have come to depend on the other.

I loved the way the friendship developed between Gray and Diana…it wasn’t immediate, but rather slow and cautious. But once it was there, you knew it was true and the kind that would last forever. And it was nice seeing a book that celebrated this friendship rather than a book where we have women constantly attacking each other.

This book is about second chances. It’s about friendship and about love and loyalty. It’s about picking up the pieces when life falls apart and moving forward. Maybe it’s not the way you thought it would be, maybe it is, but as long as you stay true to yourself and are happy it’s all good as we see our characters figure out.

I adored this book. It was the perfect escape reading for right now. While I would have loved to be sitting on the beach reading this, I nevertheless got the sense I was right there along with the characters by the very vivid descriptions that Kristy gives in her writing. I cannot recommend this book enough. This is absolutely southern fiction and summer reading at its best and I certainly will be recommending this to all my fiction-loving friends!