Every Anita Kelly book I read is my new favorite, and this is the one currently holding the trophy.
When we meet Mae, they have just spread their best friend’s ashes at the beach in a small Oregon town. Almost on a whim, she decides to move to this town—in part because she wants to be closer to Jesus (the friend, not the Lord), and in part because there’s a storefront for sale on Main Street. What better way to honor Jesus’s legacy than to take the money he left them and open a bookstore in a sleepy coastal town?
Except when she calls the number listed on the building, Dell is less than welcoming of their inquiry. Mae eventually wears him down, but their rocky start does not get very smooth very quickly—even when Dell deposits them in the guest house on his property. But as Mae determines to show Dell that they’re not a flaky Portlander, she grows on him. I mean, he always thought they were hot. But it was the personality he was avoiding. Except he likes that too.
(Dell is in denial, okay?)
In a meandering story of two people dealing with their own personal grief and other mental, emotional, and social hurdles, Heartwaves does a perfect job of tearing a reader apart and putting us back together again slightly better than we were. There will be tears; there will be laughter; there will be aggravated sighing and dreamy swooning. Every emotion that exists will betray you in some way while you read this book, and you’ll be all the better for it.
Note: This one is technically set outside the universe of their traditionally published trilogy (starting with Love & Other Disasters), but Ben and Alexei from Something Wild & Wonderful do make a brief appearance.
