Title: To Fall in Love Again
Author: David Burnett
Genre: Romance
Age Group: Adult
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
Drew Nelson did not plan to talk with anyone that morning. He did not plan to make a new friend. He certainly did not plan to fall in love.
He resisted all of Amy’s attempts to draw him out− at the hotel, at the airport, on the airplane− giving hurried responses and burying his face in a pile of papers. It was only when the flight attendant offered coffee, and a muscle in Amy’s back twitched as she reached for it, and the cup tipped, and the hot liquid puddled in Drew’s lap that they began to talk.
Earlier in the year, each had lost a spouse of over thirty years. Drew’s wife had died of a brain tumor, Amy’s husband when his small airplane nose-dived to earth, the engine at full throttle − an accident, it was ruled.
They live in the same city. Both have grandchildren. They are about the same age. Consciously, or not, they both are looking to love again.
But relationships do not exist in vacuums. Drew is wealthy, and Amy is middle class. Amy is “new” in town – she and her husband moved to Charleston twenty-five years ago – while Drew’s family has lived there for three centuries. Drew lives below Broad, a code word for high society, old families, power, and money. Amy’s home is across the river.
Class warfare may be less violent than it was in the past, but when Drew invites Amy to the St Cecelia Ball, battle lines are drawn. In a city in which ancestry is important, the ball’s membership is passed from father to son, and only those from the oldest families attend.
Family, friends, co-workers all weigh in on their relationship and choose sides. Allies are found in unexpected places. Opposition comes from among those who were thought to be friends. Though they are gone, even their spouses − through things they have done and things they have said − wield influence in the conflict that follows.
Amy begins to suspect that Drew is one of them, the rich snobs who despise her, while Drew concludes that Amy neither trusts him nor cares for him. As each questions the other’s motives, their feelings for each other are tested, and Drew and Amy are challenged to consider if they truly want to fall in love again.
In To Fall in Love Again, we meet two characters who bought suffered through loss, and feel like they might not deserve a second change. On the one hand, we have Drew Nelson, who lost his wife due to a brain tumor, and Amy’s husband died in a plane crash. They went through similar ordeals, they’re more or less the same age, and although maybe not consciously, both of them are ready to fall in love again. They meet on an airplane while traveling back home to Charleston, and become friends.
But there’s a world of difference between them as well. Drew is wealthy, Amy isn’t. She’s middle-class, which some of Drew’s snobbish, stuck-up friends find hard to deal with. Amy has lived in Charleston for twenty-five years (which some of the locals still consider as ‘being new in town’ while Drew’s family has been there for centuries. When their friends and family speak up against their relationship, Amy starts to believe Drew is a snob like his friends and thinks less of her, and then a shocking discovery drives the two of them even further apart.
I liked how both characters were already grandparents in the book. Most books seem to feature young or middle-aged protagonists, and it’s rare that you see older protagonists. The differences between both of them were so enormous that it seemed they came from two different worlds – yet, when taking into account their personality, humor, and friendship, they didn’t seem so different at all. I loved Amy. She seemed so resilient, always ready to fight for her values.
The story was heart-warming and touching and showed that differences don’t always have to be that important.
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