Falling for Peachtree Bluff

A well-drawn escapist romance where four women in a tight-knit Georgia family face domestic dilemmas.

Kristy Woodson Harvey continues the saga of the Murphy family of Peachtree Bluff, a small, coastal Georgia town brimming with the drama of family dynamics. 

Falling for Peachtree Bluff, the fifth book in the series--after Slightly South of Simple, The Secret to Southern Charm, The Southern Side of Paradise, and Christmas in Peachtree Bluff--explores the interconnected lives of the Murphy women. There’s Ansley, the family matriarch, an interior designer and a 9-11 widow who has remarried, Jack, a wealthy businessman and real estate magnate. Ansley has three adult daughters: Caroline, the level-headed oldest, a divorcée, whose feelings are complicated when her ex resurfaces just as she falls for a handsome new love; Sloane, the pregnant middle sister, who faces endless challenges alongside her husband while building their dream house. And Emerson, the youngest, whose wedding plans are disrupted when Jack’s business dealings suddenly evoke a major town scandal. Add a weather event to these complications, and Peachtree Bluff is suddenly turned upside-down. 

Woodson Harvey’s beloved series will have readers clamoring for more. Once again, she has crafted a multi-layered story rife with plenty of Southern charm, cozy plot twists, and familiar well-drawn characters. 

Falling for Peachtree Bluff by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster), $28.00 hardcover, 978-1668219300, 320 pages

Publishing Date: September 15, 2026

To order this book on Bookshop.org, link HERE

Learn more about Kristy Woodson Harvey HERE

Summer State of Mind

A heartfelt Southern romance, infused with an air of mystery, that begs the questions: “Who are we?” and “Where do we belong?”

Kristy Woodson Harvey returns readers to the coziness of small-town Southern charm in Summer State of Mind, a simmering, heartfelt story that gently explores family dynamics and the challenges of new beginnings.

 

The story starts when Daisy Stevens of Charlotte, North Carolina--a single, deeply dedicated, yet burned out nurse--decides she needs a change. After working for ten years as a Neo-Natal Intensive Unit (NICU) nurse in a Charlotte, North Carolina hospital, she packs up and takes what she believes will be a “simpler” job in Cape Carolina, a “sleepy seaside town” she had idealized since she was a child.

 

On Daisy’s first day on the job, a baby is found--cast off in a garbage dumpster--and is brought to the hospital by Mason Thaysden, the high school baseball coach. Mason was once a Major League prospect whose dreams were sidelined by an injury that forced him to stay put in his own hometown.

 

The abandoned newborn becomes the talk-of-the-town and forges a bond between Daisy and Mason. As the couples’ affection and love deepens, they are both forced to examine their hearts, hopes, and dreams. Along the way, Mason’s quirky Aunt Tilley also plays a part in reconciling her own mysterious past—a past that has the power to send ripples through the community. 

 

Readers have come to relish and take comfort in Woodson Harvey's (Beach House Rules) firm grasp on the perks--and drawbacks--of small-town living, the deep-seated complexities of love, and how “family” can often be defined beyond a mere bloodline.

 

Summer State of Mind by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster), Hardcover $29.00, 9781668074886, 384 pages

Publication Date: May 5, 2026

To order this book via Bookshop.org, link HERE

 

Learn more about author Kristy Woodson Harvey HERE

 

Good Hair Days

A dynamic Southern novel that pays homage to the bonds of sisterhood, community, and lasting legacies.  

Two sisters struggle to save a family-owned legacy business in Good Hair Days by Grace Helena Walz, a heartfelt novel woven with lots of down-to-earth Southern drama and charm. 

The story focuses on Georgia and Junie Scott, two sisters born and raised in Whitetail, a small town outside of Atlanta. Junie, the younger of the two sisters, stayed behind to run the beauty shop left to her by their mother, while Georgia, the older sister, went to a prestigious college and now lives a seemingly successful corporate life in the city.

 

In the process of trying to renovate the shop, Junie gets into a mountain of debt and thus, summons Georgia home for help. But when the sisters reunite, old wounds get reopened and both women, harboring life-changing secrets from each other, must come to terms with their own--and their shared--fates.

 

Written via the strong narrative points-of-view of each sister, Grace Helena Walz (Southern by Design) has a firm command on sisterly bonds, small-town living, and the often-unyielding depth of Southern roots. This well-drawn, nostalgic story might pay homage to the sass and sparkle of Dolly Parton, but it also delivers an unexpectedly moving, tear-jerking twist.

 

Good Hair Days by Grace Helena Walz

Harper Muse, $18.99 paperback, 9781400345663, 400 pages

Publishing date: November 11, 2025

To order this book on Indiebound/Bookshop.org, link HERE

 

 

Learn more about Grace Helena Walz link HERE

 

That Last Carolina Summer

The complicated relationship that resides between mothers and daughters--and sisters--anchors this emotionally evocative, mysterious family saga.   

That Last Carolina Summer by Karen White is an atmospheric story set in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and centers on Phoebe Manigualt who, as a child, was struck by lightning and was later gifted with--and also cursed by--premonitions and mysterious dreams that have marked the course of her life. When Phoebe, finally settled in Oregon and working as a teacher, is contacted by her sister Adeline (aka “Addie”) who notifies that their mother is suffering from dementia, Pheobe returns home. As the three women are reunited, tensions from the past suddenly illicit supernatural occurrences that force these multi-generational, well-drawn characters to relive memories and probe secrets that chillingly unite them all.  

White (An Author’s Guide to Murder, The House on Prytania) is an accomplished storyteller who successfully blends elements of women’s fiction, romance, and magical realism that combine to elevate this well-drawn family saga into an emotionally evocative, suspenseful page-turner.

 

That Last Carolina Summer by Karen White

Park Row Books (Harlequin/HQN, HarperCollins Books), $30,00 hardcover, 9780778310693, 352 pages

Publication Date: July 22, 2025

To order this book on Bookshop.org link HERE

 

To learn more about Karen White and her long list of published titles, link HERE

Beach House Rules

Bonds of family, friendship, and community bind an engaging story about how a mother and daughter put their lives back together after a scandal rocks their family.

Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey sensitively traces how a mother and daughter scramble to steady and rebuild their lives. 

The story takes place in Juniper Shores, a charming, “beautiful Southern coastal town” where the New York-based Sitterly family--Bill, Charlotte, and teenager, Iris--took refuge during the Covid-19 pandemic. For three years, the Sitterlys called idyllic Juniper Shores home. Bill worked remotely. But when Bill is accused of securities fraud--serving jail time while maintaining his innocence--Charlotte and Iris are left homeless and destitute, unable to even access family finances. This leaves Charlotte to suffer a meltdown at the bank, where she is calmed by a local woman, 45-year-old widow, Alice Bailey, who befriends Charlotte and Iris. 

Alice--whom local gossip sites claim might’ve killed her three previous husbands--invites them to come and live with her, as she shares her big beach house, a former B&B, with other women who face troubles of their own. This includes Julie, Alice’s niece, a journalist and single mom. And Grace, a divorced mom who is also a social media sensation. This small tribe of strangers keep house and support each other. The shared living arrangement--deemed a “mommune,” like a commune, something of a “lost ladies’ hostel"--offers stability for Charlotte and Iris. But complications ensue when the past resurrects and comes calling again. 

Woodson Harvey (A Happier Life) plots exciting turns via many story threads. Alternate points of view, along with elements of mystery and romance, make for a greatly entertaining story that will appeal to a wide audience.

Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster), $28.99 hardcover, 9781668074800, 368 pages

Publication Date: May 27, 2025

To order this book on Bookshop.org, link HERE

 

Link HERE to learn more about Kristy Woodson Harvey

The Empress of Cooke County

A sweet and sassy, coming-to-terms mother-daughter saga that sparkles with juicy secrets and scheming, 1960s Southern Gothic flare. 

Scheming Southern flare sparkles in The Empress of Cooke County, a first novel by Elizabeth Bass Parmen.  

Set in 1966 in Spark, Tenn., Cooke County, this split point-of-view narrative centers on a fraught mother-daughter relationship. Posey Jarvis is an outspoken, 38-year-old, wife and mother who idolizes Jackie Kennedy. She and her “sweet,” good-natured husband of twenty years, Vern, appear settled in the folksy small town. However, Posey still carries a secret torch for a man who jilted her years before—swigs of gin from a tucked away flask help her to cope. Posey’s broken heart still colors her life, especially her high-hopes for 18-year-old daughter, Callie Jane. When Callie is blindsided by a public marriage proposal, she suddenly must confront the expectations that have shaped her life. And when her mother inherits a once-glamorous, now delipidated house from a long-lost aunt--and Posey decides to spruce up the house for Callie’s upcoming wedding and Posey’s 20^th high school reunion--the stakes are raised. A lifetime of angst, secrets, and rebellion escalate between overbearing, conniving Posey and Callie Jane, who fights to finally come into her own. 

Escalating drama sharpens brisk plotting that includes story-threads about a renegade, local peeping Tom and changing mores of the social-climbing South. Fans of unfaltering Southern Belles in the vein of authors Fannie Flagg and Kathryn Stockett will bask in the sassy charm of Parmen’s stellar debut.

The Empress of Cooke County by Elizabeth Bass Parmen

Harper Muse, $18.99 paperback, 9781400342594, 304 pages

Publication Date: September 3, 2024

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (September 13, 2024), link HERE 

A Happier Life

The renovation of an old family house in North Carolina reveals discoveries about the past and encourages a young woman at a crossroads in the present to make a fresh start in life. 

Author Kristy Woodson Harvey has built a brand writing tender, heartfelt stories that showcase Southern flair, smalltown life, and the bonds of family and friendship. In A Happier Life, she adds to her growing body of work, offering readers a poignant story about one contemporary woman and one woman from the past, both facing change in their lives.

 

The book launches with 30-something, Keaton Smith. She is Southern woman transplanted to a high-powered job working for a New York City “lifestyle brand” company. On the same day Keaton gets dumped from her job and by her beau, she’s asked by her mother to clear out the house her mother grew up in--a home Keaton didn’t know was still in the family--in Beaufort, North Carolina.

 

Keaton is reluctant. However, being at a crossroads and with time on her hands, she takes on the task. When she steps into the 254-year-old house, she finds it has been left eerily untouched--complete with rotary telephone--since the night her grandparents died unexpectedly in a tragic car accident in August 1976.

 

As Keaton settles in and begins to assess the home, she starts to assemble pieces, like a puzzle, of her grandparents’ lives. Did they really die by accident? Or could there be more to the story? Keaton becomes more greatly intrigued when she starts to read her grandmother’s journal. It further encourages Keaton in her determination to find answers. She mingles with the locals and even strikes up a relationship with a young father who lives with his son next door.

 

What ensues is a captivating, heartwarming story that combines a long-lost family saga with elements of mystery and romance. Readers will be riveted and wowed by Woodsen’s (The Summer of Songbirds, The Wedding Veil) 12^th winning novel.

 

 

A Happier Life by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster), $28.99 hardcover, 9781668012192, 384 pages

Publication Date: June 25, 2024

To order this book on Bookshop/INDIEBOUND, link HERE

Silver Alert

A sparkling, serio-comic novel about an ailing wife, her elderly husband, overbearing kids and a manicurist trying to eke out a new life.

Prolific, masterful storyteller Lee Smith (Guests on Earth; Dimestore) returns to the Florida Keys in her sparkling, tender-hearted novel Silver Alert. For 12 years, Key West resident Herb Atlas—gruff, no nonsense and married several times—has been taking “great care” of his “last wife,” Susan—a passionate lover of the arts and an artist herself who started to exhibit symptoms of early-onset dementia at age 58. With Herb now 83 and suffering health problems of his own, and Susan’s condition progressing more rapidly now that she’s 70, Herb hired the upbeat and free-spirited Renee to help out.

Renee, a manicurist who lives in a trailer park, is struggling to escape a dark, secret past and reinvent her life. She becomes a friend and companion to Susan, and her lively presence in Susan’s and Herb’s live reinvigorates the emotional well-being of the Atlases. However, when Herb’s overbearing and domineering adult children and half-children descend on Key West and stage an intervention to help the burdened couple, things take a dramatic, unexpected turn. “Everybody agrees. Susan ought to be in a facility now”—except Herb. Feeling powerless and boxed in by the limits imposed by his obstinate children, who take over and orchestrate decisions for his life and Susan’s care, Herb ultimately rebels. On a lark, he sets off in his prized Porsche sportscar with Renee. The two go on the lam—a wild, liberating road trip that will change their lives forever.

Smith has crafted a remarkably well-rounded, empathetic, serio-comic story. Silver Alert is a novel that takes readers on a deeply meaningful, unforgettable ride brimming with hope.

 

Silver Alert by Lee Smith

Algonquin Books, $27.00 hardcover, 224 pages, 9781643752419

Publishing Date: April 18, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (April 21, 2023), link HERE

NOTE: To read this review, the original long form review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (March 30, 2023), link HERE

The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop

Fannie Flagg delivers feel-good fun, revisiting stories about a small Alabama town--focusing on a beloved local--from her popular 1987 novel.

Fannie Flagg's enduring Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café was published in 1987 (and made into a movie in 1992). The heartwarming novel explored the friendship between a disillusioned, middle-aged housewife and Ninny Threadgoode, an elderly woman living out her days in a nursing home. Ninny had astonishing tales to tell about a bustling railroad cafe in a small Alabama town east of Birmingham in the 1930s.

 

Flagg's long-awaited sequel focuses on Buddy Threadgoode, Jr., son of the late Ruth Jamison, who once ran the Whistle Stop Cafe with Imogene "Idgie" Threadgoode, an adventurous, rebellious tomboy. Through a patchwork quilt of scenes, Bud's history unfolds from the 1930s: how he managed life with a missing arm, an injury incurred in a train accident when he was six years old, and became a veterinarian; how Aunt Idgie became Bud's best friend and cheerleader, even after she sold the café and moved to Florida; how Bud fell in love with and married his childhood sweetheart, and they raised a daughter, Ruthie, a woman with her own story to tell.

 

As in Fried Green Tomatoes, Flagg infuses short chapter vignettes with cozy snippets of gossip about Whistle Stop townsfolk--memorable characters from the first book--who left town and set down roots elsewhere. Bud--now in his 80s, retired and widowed--looks back lovingly and longingly at his Whistle Stop days. The story blossoms in vintage Flagg style--folksy and feel-good. An abundance of Southern charm will delight both readers eager to journey back to beloved Whistle Stop and also those wanting to visit for the very first time.

The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop: A Novel by Fannie Flagg

Random House, $28.00 Hardcover, 9780593133842, 304 pages

Publication Date: October 20, 2020

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (October 27, 2020), link HERE

Love, Alice

Two grief-stricken women cross paths and help each other come to grips with the mysteries of their respective lives.

Societal stigmas and taboos reside at the heart of Love, Alice by Barbara Davis (Summer at Hideaway Key). Set in Charleston, S.C., the novel focuses on 36-year-old Dovie Larkin, whose fiancé committed suicide two weeks before their wedding. A year later, Dovie spends her lunch hours sitting graveside at the cemetery, still grappling with what happened and why, unable to pick up the pieces of her life.

One day, Dovie spots an elderly woman leaving a note at the striking angel grave marker of Alice Tandy, a young maid who died 32 years earlier and, to the bewilderment of locals, had been buried in a plot belonging to one of the richest families in town. After the woman leaves, Dovie reads the note: a mother's impassioned regret for having sent her young daughter to an asylum for unwed mothers in Cornwall, England, in the 1960s. Dovie, identifying with the unresolved grief expressed, soon discovers a trove of related letters in the cemetery's lost and found, and sets off in search of the writer, Dora Tandy, who has come to Charleston to learn more about the life--and death--of her long-lost daughter, Alice.

Hope, love and forgiveness permeate this beautifully rendered novel where both Dovie and Dora unearth answers to mysteries and reveal secrets that will come to define their respective lives and quests for peace.

Love, Alice: A Novel by Barbara Davis

Berkley, $16.00 Paper, 9780451474810, 432 pages

Publication Date: December 6, 2016

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (January 3, 2017), link HERE

The Secret to Hummingbird Cake

"It isn't always blood that makes a family," says one of the characters in The Secret to Hummingbird Cake, a witty and heartwarming first novel by Celeste Fletcher McHale. The story is set in the small Southern town of Bon Dieu Falls, La., and centers on three, 30 year-old women—soul-mate friends since the age of five who sweeten the lives of each other amid life-changing tests of faith.

Carrigan, the narrator, is a fiery redhead whose been married for 13 years and harbors painstaking suspicions about her handsome husband's fidelity, as she, herself, has partaken in a secret, regrettable "indiscretion" of her own. Carrigan's spitfire best friend, Ella Rae, married her childhood sweetheart and is still so madly in love with him that Carrigan swears the two of them "breathed in unison."   Laine, Carrigan's other best friend, is the responsible, level-headed one of the bunch. Still single, Laine, caring and good-natured, is a much-beloved high school English teacher, famous for "the creamy white icing and the sweet pineapple" of her Hummingbird Cake, a Southern staple. Yet, she refuses to share her recipe even with her closest friends—who beg. 

The three minds of these very different women work in a "posse" as Carrigan grapples with her troubled marriage, trying to repair what's broken, via the encouragement and support of her friends, who also come face-to-face with life-changing challenges and heart wrenching secrets. Fletcher McHale blends sassy and sentimental--drizzling spiritual crises atop everything--and whips up a wholesome story about the transcendent, everlasting bonds of friendship and love.  

The Secret to Hummingbird Cake by Celeste Fletcher McHale
Thomas Nelson, $15.99 Trade paper, 9780718039561, 304 pp
Publication Date: February 9, 2016
To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (2/23/16), link HERE

The Saturday Evening Post: Great American Fiction

 

I am pleased and honored that one of my short stories received honorable mention in The Saturday Evening Post: Great American Fiction Contest. The coordinators of the prize--Steven Slon and Patrick Perry (editors of The Saturday Evening Post magazine)--have compiled the top selections and assembled them in one collection entitled, Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest 2016

My story, "Affentity," which is featured in the collection, takes place in 1922 and is about the relationship between an impressionable young girl and her bootlegging, spiritually challenged grandfather.

To learn more and to order the anthology link HERE

Happy Reading...Enjoy!

Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest 2016 Edited by Steven Slon and Patrick Perry

The Saturday Evening Post Society, $3.99 ebook, B01A05K7RU, 402 pp

Publication Date: December 29, 2015

To order this book link HERE