I love the small-town romance trope, and I love some conflict in a romance, and with a love triangle, there’s sure to be some, even if it’s all internal. Also, SING ME HOME TO CAROLINA has a gorgeous cover, and while I know one should not judge a book by its cover, I do read a lot of books just because of the cover!
Hattie is an event planner on the fast track to partnership when she returns to her small hometown to help her parents after her dad experiences health issues. She quickly becomes the town pariah after refusing to sign a petition to keep the state from building a new stadium for the professional football team in Mountain View, believing that the town is dying and the stadium would bring much-needed visitors, who would bring much-needed money and business. Despite the stadium also displacing some of the residents as they lose their land for the development.
Hattie tells us her story in first person point of view, which is not my favorite as we only get inside her head and I like getting more insight into other characters as well, especially the other main character, or in this case the other two main characters. But Hattie is an insightful and descriptive narrator, and we do get a good characterization of the town and its residents through her eyes. We meet Lee, her high school boyfriend who broke her heart when he dumped her before going off to become a star baseball player, and Fox, a relative newcomer who we get to know along with Hattie. Lee is open, charming and charismatic, while Fox is a bit of a contradiction. He’s closed off when it comes to sharing personal information about himself or his life, keeping a bit to himself, yet he’s very popular among the residents, helping out anyone who needs it however he can. I guess he’s a bit charming and charismatic in his own way, but not as smooth as Lee. I was definitely drawn to him much more than to Lee, and it was a little agonizing watching Hattie profess to have never stopped loving Lee while also being drawn to Fox. The author kept that triangle playing out right up until the very end of the book and I had no idea how things would eventually shake out.
During the course of the story, Hattie is put through an emotional wringer. She loves her job and her life in the city and has no intention of ever living in Mountain View again. But she still loves the town and her childhood home, a peanut farm that no longer produces due to unproductive soil. She wants to do whatever she can to help her parents, but she also wants her parent to think about moving to the city with her. Between the stadium issues, some of the residents of the town avoiding her or worse, confronting her and calling her selfish for not signing the petition, her boss needing her to get back to her job, helping her parents renovate their barn and set up a new event venue, and her conflicting feelings about Lee and Fox, it’s a wonder Hattie wasn’t a complete nervous wreck. I was almost a nervous wreck by the end of the book!
Eventually, Hattie has to face her feelings and choose between Lee and Fox, which leads to some emotion-filled pages and some tears being shed, both Hattie’s and mine. The final resolution to the fate of the town, while suddenly wrapped up in an unexpected way that seemed to come out of left field, was poignant and satisfying.
A small-town romance that tugs at the heartstrings, SING ME HOME TO CAROLINA is an enjoyable story of a woman finding her life turned upside down while also finding herself and the importance of home.
A small town girl turned big city businesswoman returns home to help her parents, only to find her heart being tugged between her old flame and the town’s mysterious new guy.
This witty and effervescent novel is perfect for readers of Viola Shipman and fans of Sweet Magnolias and Hart of Dixie.
Event planner Hattie Norwood only came back home to Mountain View, South Carolina to support her parents as they receive word that the family peanut farm is infertile. This news doesn’t come as a surprise to Hattie, and she plans to return to Charlotte at the weekend’s end.
But then the town councilwoman begs Hattie to use her event planning prowess to help Mountain View put on a musical benefit to stop the construction of the new Carolina Panthers stadium—a project Hattie is actually in favor of, much to the dismay of the locals—and she finds herself agreeing to stay until the town’s Founder’s Day celebration a week later, just as her old flame, former MLB standout Lee Lockhardt, materializes in town after a career-ending injury.
When the hunky and mysterious new owner of Fox’s Hardware, Fox Ryan, suggests the Founder’s Day celebration be moved to the Norwoods’ barn in an attempt to reinvent the failing farm as a music and event venue, Hattie agrees, unaware this move will thrust the town, her love life, and the brewing tension over the stadium into a very public spotlight.
Fans of small-town romance and quirky casts of characters will be rooting for Team Lee or Team Fox as Hattie decides if love, like most music, is meant to fade or last forever.
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