April 22, 2019
Sala (Dark Water Rising) falters with the lackluster eighth small-town contemporary in the Blessings, Georgia series, in which an old family feud at last gets resolved. Skilled contractor Bowie James returns to Blessings to rebuild the house where he grew up, which has been damaged by a hurricane. His relatives, who still live in the house, have taken in Rowan Harper, who lost her home and father in the storm. While Bowie copes with the Boone family’s persecution of him, he and Rowan flirt and then swiftly fall into a low-key romance in which she makes him coffee, he buys her clothing, and they picnic together near the site of Rowan’s destroyed home. Meanwhile, as the Boones’ past sins relating to Bowie and his mother are revealed, their tribulations repeatedly draw focus from Bowie and Rowan, whose characters are considerably more shallow. This is mostly a saga of fallout from family skeletons revealed, and romance readers might want to give it a miss. Agent: Meredith Bernstein, Meredith Bernstein Literary.