A Rainbow above Us (Blessings, Georgia Series #8)

by Sharon Sala

Overview

"Sharon Sala is a consummate storyteller. If you can stop reading, then you're a better woman than me."—DEBBIE MACOMBER, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

Welcome back to USA Today bestselling author Sharon Sala's world of Blessings, Georgia—a tight-knit small town where the secrets of southern girls sometimes have surprising consequences, you never forget your first love, and the magnolia-scented breeze always feels like home.

Hurricane Fanny left no one in Blessings, Georgia, unscathed—including Rowan Harper. Rebuilding her life after so much loss seems impossible. Now that she's all alone, how can she ever hope to find the strength to carry on?

Bowie James has come back to help repair his grandmother's house, but he doesn't intend to stay long. He and his mother were forced out of Blessings a decade ago, and he's never forgotten the small-minded people responsible for bringing him so much pain.

But Rowan isn't like anyone else. She's kindhearted, beautiful, and so lost he can't bring himself to stay away. When he reaches out in kindness, an unlikely friendship blooms, and soon Bowie discovers that he can entrust Rowan with his deepest secrets—and, if they can find it in themselves to trust again…his heart.

Sit down and stay a spell: In Blessings, Georgia, you're guaranteed a small town where good people triumph and the rotten apples get what's coming to them, a sweet and clean love story that'll warm your heart, and a new home that's always there when you need it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492673682
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	06/25/2019
Series:	Blessings, Georgia Series , #8
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	168,385
Product dimensions:	4.10(w) x 6.80(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Sharon Sala has 135+ books in print, published in six different genres—romance, young adult, Western, general fiction, women’s fiction and non-fiction. First published in 1991, her industry awards include the Janet Dailey Award, five-time Career Achievement winner, five-time winner of the National Readers’ Choice Award, five-time winner of the Colorado Romance Writers’ Award of Excellence, the Heart of Excellence award, the Booksellers Best Award, the Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Centennial Award in recognition of her 100th published novel. She lives in Oklahoma, the state where she was born. Visit her at www.sharonsalaauthor.com and www.facebook.com/sharonsala.

Editorial Reviews

04/22/2019

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. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"An emotionally charged love story of loneliness and finding the one for you and that hate can't win. [Sala’s] Blessings, Georgia series is full of heartfelt emotions and laughter." — Fresh Fiction

From the Publisher

2019-04-28
A construction company owner returns home and finds love with a hurricane refugee.

The Boone and James families of Blessings, Georgia, have been feuding for generations. As a teenager, Bowie James and his mother were forced to flee town, and he vowed never to return. Years later, a hurricane destroys his grandmother's home, and his family begs him to help rebuild. Bowie is surprised to find Rowan Harper, a young woman who lost her father in the storm, living with his aunt and grandmother in an emergency shelter. Refusing to leave any of "his girls" behind, he takes all three to live in his mobile home while his crew restores the destroyed house. When Bowie's return unveils years of shameful Boone family secrets, he prepares himself for their inevitable retaliation, which starts with physical assault and escalates to gunplay. Sala (Forever My Hero, 2019, etc.) gives extensive narrative time to everyone in the Boone family, including the angry patriarch, the duped wives, the incompetent middle-aged sons, and the confused teenage grandson. This is notable only because Rowan, Bowie's love interest and the heroine of the book, is a complete cipher. Rowan graduated from high school, but there is no hint of her life in the intervening seven years. She lived on a farm with her controlling father and didn't go to school, have a job, or dream of her future. Every morning Bowie heads into Blessings, and readers follow his day and the machinations of the Boone family, but there is nothing of Rowan. Rarely are modern romance heroines so passively underdeveloped; Rowan does little more than prepare dinner and wait for Bowie to return home and make her a character again.

Overwrought small-town drama relegates the romance to an unsatisfying subplot.

Kirkus Reviews