Rita Jensen is living the perfect life. She has been a
hairdresser at an
upscale boutique in Beverly Hills CA for the past seven
years. She has two
great roommates and she couldn't be happier. That is,
until the day her
dad calls to inform her that her mother has had a stroke.
Her dad tells her
she is needed at home and of course, she doesn't think
twice about what
she has to do. Within hours she is on a plane and flying
back to Chicago.
Much to her surprise, Rita is greeted at O'Hare Airport by
an old school
friend, Johnny Hollister. Her brother asked him to pick
her up. LOVE
GENTLY FALLING is an uplifting tale of love, family, and
courage. Once
she is back, Rita goes to check on things at her mother's
hair salon and
can't believe how run down it looks. Well, she now is on
a mission to fix the
place up. She gets lots of help from Johnny and her
friends. When she
finds out that Johnny is a janitor she kind of puts her
nose up at him. When
a doctor does the same thing to her when he finds out she
is a hair dresser,
she learns a valuable lesson. How could she be so
shallow?
I've never read a Melody Carlson novel before, but LOVE
GENTLY
FALLING has made me want to read more of Ms. Carlson's
words. I was
instantly pulled in to the story and found myself
cheering on Rita and all
she was trying to accomplish. The loving relationship
Rita has with her
parents pulls at your heart strings. Rita has quite the
walk down memory
lane when she finds out that the old skating rink is going
to be reopening
soon. She also remembers other things from her past and
now that she is
back home, they don't seem that important anymore.
The characters in LOVE GENTLY FALLING are very real and
believable
and before you know it, they seem like your old friends.
I like that as the
story progresses, Rita slowly but surely changes her
thinking from
focusing on worldly and material things to appreciating
relationships and
lovingly helping others. Melody Carlson sure knows how to
pull you into a
story and never lets you go until the very last page.
I'm excited to have
found a new author that writes exactly what this avid
reader loves to get
lost in for an afternoon. My only complaint is that I
finished the story. I
could have kept on reading about Rita and Johnny for
another two hundred
pages.
Rita Jansen is living her dream as a hairstylist in
Hollywood when her father calls with news that her mother
has suffered a stroke. When she gets home to Chicago, Rita
finds her mother is healing but facing a long recovery.
Worse, without being able to run their family-owned salon,
her mother could lose the business. Rita decides to help,
but she only has until Valentine's Day to come up with a
plan.
As Rita takes her mother's place at work, the nearby
skating
rink she loved as a child brings back fond memories. Rita
also finds herself renewing friendships with her childhood
best friend, Marley, as well as her classmate Johnny.
Although they now lead such seemingly different lives,
Rita
is surprised by how well she and Johnny connect and how
far
he will go to help her. Though Rita believes Johnny is
only
being kind, with romance kindling in the air and on the
ice,
their friendship may just fall into something more.