It's the holidays, Southern-style, in sugary fam-romance 'Christmas in Peachtree Bluff'
North Carolina author Kristy Woodson Harvey gives her readers a big Hallmark Holiday Movie of a novel for Christmas, full of glitter, nostalgia, romance and happy endings.
Harvey returns to the setting of her best sellers "The Secret to Southern Charm" and "Slightly South of Simple." Once again we're in Peachtree Bluff, a quaint, old-fashioned beach town with elements of Tybee Island, Hilton Head and, very likely, Harvey's hometown of Beaufort, N.C.
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Once again, we're following the Murphy women: Ansley, an interior decorator, and her three grown daughters, Caroline, Sloane and Emerson.
"Christmas in Peachtree Bluff" follows a family reunion at the beach between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, in one of the last pre-pandemic holiday seasons.
The action picks up three years after the events in "Slightly South of Simple." After years of widowhood, Ansley has married her high school sweetheart, Jack.
Sloane is painting. Her husband, Adam, a disabled war hero who was briefly missing in action in Iraq, now runs Peachtree Bluff's grocery/deli in partnership with Jack. Emerson, an actress, comes home from Los Angeles with her boyfriend Kyle, who used to run the island coffee shop.
After all the weddings and prior happy endings, Harvey has to stretch to come up with new problems and conflicts, but she finds enough.
In the last installment, it looked as if Caroline would reconcile with her husband James. (In "Slightly South of Simple" he ran off with a reality TV diva just as Caroline was pregnant with little Preston.) The two have broken up, but Caroline has reconnected with her old Peachtree Bluff beau, Wes, who's conveniently divorced and unattached.
Caroline's daughter Vivi, however, has hit the teenage years with a bang and declared war on her mother. The other characters spend a lot of time getting Vivi off her iPad.
Meanwhile, Kyle wants to propose, but Emerson is wary of commitment, even though Kyle is the father of her 2-year-old daughter, Carter.
In the middle of all this, a late-season hurricane is bearing down on Peachtree Bluff.
Between crises and emotional flare-ups, the Murphy women enact the traditions of the season, from tree lightings to cookie baking. Seldom is heard a discouraging word.
Fans of Harvey's blend of romance and light comedy will eat up "Christmas at Peachtree Bluff" like holiday sugar cookies. And don't be surprised if a Hallmark Channel adaptation shows up for Christmas 2022.
Ben Steelman can be reached at 910-616-1788 or peacebsteelman@gmail.com.
BOOK REVIEW
'CHRISTMAS IN PEACHTREE BLUFF'
By Kristy Woodson Harvey
Gallery Books, $16.99 paperback
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Kristy Woodson Harvey's Christmas in Peachtree Bluff a sugary novel
