REVIEW: Falling Home by Karen White

Synopsis

Falling Home is a coming home story about forgiveness and acceptance, and of finding love in the most unexpected of places. Home is where the heart is, but Cassie Madison prefers to think of it as a place where one is born, then outgrows, along with skinned knees and childhood dreams. A humiliated Cassie left Walton, Georgia for Manhattan fifteen years before, vowing never to return. 

And then her sister calls. Their father is dying and wants Cassie to come back home. When Cassie's father dies, saddling her with the family's antebellum home and letters hinting of an unknown sibling, Cassie finds herself sinking into the red Georgia clay like quicksand. Reluctantly, Cassie is pulled into the lives of her sister and family, and that of Sam Parker, the town doctor. When tragedy strikes, Cassie is led to discover that home is a place that lives in one's heart, waiting with open arms to be rediscovered. 

About the Author

from her website

After playing hooky from school one day in the seventh grade to read Gone With the Wind, I knew I wanted to be a writer—or become Scarlett O'Hara. In spite of these aspirations, I grew up to pursue a degree in business and graduated cum laude with a BS in Management from Tulane University.

I have always been a voracious reader and was encouraged by my teachers to write ever since elementary school.  Writing a book was always in the back of my mind, but definitely something I'd "do later when I have time."

One day in 1996 when my children were just babies, I decided it was time and started writing my first book.  When I had a few chapters written, I sent it in to a writer's contest and by some miracle it won.  The finalist judge was a New York literary agent and she offered to represent me.  That first book, In the Shadow of the Moon, was sold and then published in 2000.  It was a double finalist in Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA award.

I have since published eleven award-winning novels, including The Girl on Legare Street which debuted at #31 on the New York Times bestseller list. I have four more books scheduled including the next two books in the Tradd Street series (in 2011 and 2013, respectively). My next Southern women's fiction ("grit lit") novel, On Folly Beach, will be published in May 2010.


While growing up, I lived in London, England and am a graduate of the American School in London.  I currently live in sunny Georgia with my husband and two children.  When not writing, I spend my time reading, singing, scrapbooking, carpooling children and avoiding cooking.

I love hearing from readers. Please email me at AuthorKarenWhite@aol.com or write to Karen White, PO Box 623, Roswell, Georgia 30077.

Q&A with the Author

Talking with Karen White about hometowns, writing and her new novel, FALLING HOME—

Karen, many people spend their lives trying to get away from their hometowns. You’ve spent much of your life searching for one. Why? What does “hometown” mean to you?

A “hometown” is what all my cousins had—a place where they went to school with the same people from kindergarten through high school, where everybody knew their name—at school, at the grocery store, getting a traffic ticket. I’m sure the grass is always greener and all that, but I’ve always thought that to have a place like that to go home to had to be the best part of life.

You’ve lived in major cities and metropolitan areas—including in the UK and South America. Yet, you’ve coveted your grandmother’s town, Indianola, Mississippi, for much of your life. What do you find to be the best about each—the cities you’ve lived in and the towns you’ve coveted?

The places I’ve lived in have given me a wonderful global perspective—and made me appreciate what we have here in the States (and if you didn’t think you’d miss 24 hour stores, you’re in for a big surprise!). It also allowed me to do an almost anthropological study of my Southern relatives and their hometowns, enabling me to see them as an outsider would. If I’d grown up amongst them, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate their unique qualities, not to mention their accents.

Where did you get the inspiration for Walton, the fictional town at the center of FALLING HOME? Which came first—the plot and its conflict looking for a home? Or “Walton” followed by thoughts of what you could make happen there?

Nothing comes to me sequentially, but usually a setting and the main protagonist and her “problem” are the first things that settle in my mind when starting a book. I believe (to a point) in the adage of “write what you know.” I’d never lived in a small Southern town, but I’d visited them enough growing up to believe I could write about one as if I had. So I made up Walton—but it’s based on several real
towns including Indianola, Mississippi and Monroe, Georgia.

You’ve explored family conflict in many of your novels, you deal with a range of family dynamics, and you cross gender and generations in your work. It seems mother and daughter, and sister-to-sister relationships have most frequently played a role in your books. Do you agree? And, if so, what pulls you in that direction?

I was raised with three brothers so of course I always wanted a sister. I spent a lifetime studying the sister relationships of my mother and my aunts, as well as those of my friends with sisters. I think it was inevitable that I people my stories with sisters.

As for the mother-daughter relationship, well, being a mother AND daughter I can definitely relate on a personal level. It is, I believe, the most complex of all relationships. It’s somewhat reassuring to know that there’s at least one thing in my books that I don’t have to go very far to research!

Can you imagine any situation in which you would cut off relationships with family members as Cassie did?

I’m a middle child, meaning I avoid conflict at all cost. If somebody slighted me, I would go to great lengths to get that person to like me. So, no, I can’t imagine what circumstances would compel me to do that. However, if I’d been in Cassie’s shoes, I don’t know if I’d behave any differently.

FALLING HOME is so compelling in its use of unrequited love—Cassie’s for Joe, Sam’s for Cassie, Harriet’s for Cassie, and the decades Miss Lena spent alone. What makes these emotions so powerful, and so difficult to diffuse?

I think it’s because we can all relate to a broken heart which is, at any level, unrequited love. It’s so painful to love someone or want something so badly, and knowing that the desire is not returned. It is the most elemental pain—and can start as early as not being picked for a kickball team on the school yard playground.

In FALLING HOME, you don’t seem to dwell on the negative, even as you tackle your characters' conflict, pain, disappointments and challenges. Somehow you manage to maintain emotional and sometimes polarizing plot threads while still emphasizing positives such as loyalty, love, and triumph. Do you think this is true? And is this something you’re conscious of doing in this and other of your novels?

I don’t know if it’s a conscious thing; I do know that my characters tend to emulate the same kinds of characteristics I try to maintain in my real life. I don’t believe that a disappointment is the end of the road, or that loss negates any of life’s meaning. I’ve also learned—although usually kicking and screaming—that all of life’s challenges are learning experiences and that life isn’t fair. Deal with it and move on. It sure beats the alternative.

For readers who are first discovering you through FALLING HOME, please recommend which of your novels they should read next. And—for those of us who have been happily following Melanie and Jack from THE HOUSE ON TRADD STREET and THE GIRL ON LEGARE STREET—when will we see them again? Lastly, what is going to hit bookshelves next? And when?

Hopefully, the sequel to FALLING HOME, AFTER THE RAIN, will be rereleased in the near future. In the meantime, I’d suggest LEARNING TO BREATHE, another book set in a small Southern town, but this one in Louisiana.

As for the Tradd Street series, there will be two more books out in 2011 and 2013, respectively. I’ve already started writing number 3, and it is tentatively entitled THE TURRET ON MONTAGU STREET.

My next book, out in May 2011, will be THE BEACH TREES, set in pre-Camille New Orleans and post-Katrina Biloxi, Mississippi.

Thank you, Karen!

My Thoughts

Cassie Madison was a small town girl with big city dreams. After a she learns that her sister and her boyfriend have fallen in love and eloped together, she runs away from her small town of Walton to chase those big dreams, never giving it a second thought until the phone call comes that changes everything.

Returning to her childhood home 15 years later to attend to her ailing father, Cassie must finally face old hurts and learn to forgive and forget, or run away once more. But this time there are new ties to hold her to Walton. Will those ties be strong enough to finally tether her down?

I can always tell that I’m really “getting into” a story when I can see it playing out in my head. And this one very quickly took on a life of its own on the “big screen” in my mind. I soon saw scenes from the movie Hope Floats flashing in my mind, glimpses of town characters, the city streets. Almost immediately the role of Dr. Sam Parker was played by “Marlboro Man” (the husband of Ree “Pioneer Woman” Drummond) in my mind. (I used to have a photo of Marlboro Man here, but worried that it was probably breaching copyright on Pioneer Woman. So I have chosen to remove it. Go here to see the vision in my head for Dr. Sam Parker.)

I love Cassie Madison. She is tough and tenacious, and has lost touch with her soft side long ago. However returning to her family and finding herself surrounded by her nieces and nephew begins to soften her up as she gets to play "aunt" for the first time. I sort of identify with Cassie, and I even posted recently on my Facebook status:

"Is it bad to say that I identify with the character in the book that I'm reading that is described as "stubborn, bullheaded, and mean to boot"?

Cassie returns to find an old school chum is now "Doctor" Sam Parker. And it seems that Sam prefers to spend his time acting as a thorn in Cassie's side. This, of course, brings some nice sexual tension to a storyline that is often wrought with emotion.

Cassie must finally deal with the guilt of abandoning her family for all of those years, and the pain she endured as a result of the relationship between her sister Harriet and old boyfriend Joe. And along the way there is a little mystery, a little levity, and a lot of sincere emotion.

I loved this story. It had such richness and depth. It hangs in one’s mind like a good wine hangs on the tongue. It's full of truth and regrets and family and love. This story has heart.

Falling Home goes on sale November 2, 2010!

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Thanks to Assistant Publicist Joy for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.