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Award-winning author of Comfort Plans, Kimberly Fish, delivers a novel about family, forgiveness, and the seeds of second chances.Eight years ago, Autumn Joy Worthington, still reeling from the bitter divorce of her Grammy-Award-winning parents, endured the betrayal of a man who’d promised her a wedding. Running from pain seemed the logical response. Reinventing herself in Comfort, Texas, as a lavender grower, she creates a wildly successful gardening haven that draws in tourists and establishes an identity far removed from her parents’ fame. Her mother’s retirement from stardom inspires AJ to offer her refuge and nurse the dream that they could move past old hurts and the tarnish of the music industry … to find friendship. A grandmother in the early stages of dementia and the return of AJ’s father complicate the recovery, but nothing sets the fragile reality spinning like the arrival of Nashville music executive, Luke English.
As Alzheimer’s slowly knocks away the filters of their family, AJ comes to appreciate the true meanings of love and forgiveness — and that the power of redemption can generate from the most unlikely sources. When AJ uncovers the grit to make hard choices, she also discovers that the flowers that bloom the brightest can have the most tangled roots.
When I read books, my brain tends to turn the story into a cinematic experience. Comfort Songs by Kimberly Fish very easily converted into a movie in my mind because of its vivid imagery (and lovely smells!) and natural dialogue. I wasn’t surprised to read that several of the characters from the companion book, Comfort Plans, reappear in this novel. Fish obviously has a clear picture of each character and effortlessly translates that image onto the page so that we can see it as well.
I didn’t get around to casting everyone in the book, but the first person I pictured in the role of July Sands was Jane Fonda. I know that the age isn’t quite right, but I felt like she had the looks and feistiness to pull off the singer struggling with her forced retirement. As for the beautiful and strong Autumn Joy, I couldn’t shake Reese Witherspoon out of my head. I could see her defiance, challenging anyone to try to prove that her own hand didn’t carve the life she led. And finally, I saw Bradley Cooper as the charming and handsome Luke English: a man who can flip that corporate switch just as easily as he can draw you in with his own brand of southern charm.
In case you can’t tell, I was fully immersed in this story because of the interesting characters. There were so many moving parts as we jump back and forth from the past to the present to see what makes the three generations of women tick. If you thought you had mother-in-law issues, you haven’t seen anything yet. And you would think that someone who suffered constant abuse at the hand of another person would remember that feeling and not continue that awful cycle of abuse. I guess that would only happen in a perfect world. And despite the picturesque backdrop of lavender fields, this particular slice of Comfort, Texas is anything but perfect.
While the book’s resolution left me feeling cozy, it didn’t have that cloying air that many romantic novels have when things end a little too perfectly. I am having trouble explaining why that is, but maybe it’s as simple as the story being realistic. At any rate, I highly recommend this book to the romantics and any readers who appreciate phenomenal storytelling.
+ HUMMINGBIRD FARMS HAND CREAM & HAND SOAP
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