The Thing About Home
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
Home is not a place—it’s a feeling.
Casey Black needs an escape. When her picture-perfect vow renewal ceremony ends in her being left at the altar, the former model turned social media influencer has new fame—the kind she never wanted. An embarrassing viral video has cost her millions of followers, and her seven-year marriage is over. With her personal and business lives in shambles, Casey runs from New York City to South Carolina’s Lowcountry hoping to find long-lost family. Family who can give her more answers about her past than her controlling mom-slash-manager has ever been willing to share.
What Casey doesn’t expect is a postcard-worthy property on a three-hundred-acre farm, history, culture, and a love of sweet tea. She spends her days caring for the land and her nights cooking much needed Southern comfort foods. She also meets Nigel, the handsome farm manager whose friendship has become everything she’s never had. And then there are the secrets her mother can no longer hide.
Through the pages of her great-grandmother’s journals, Casey discovers her roots run deeper than the Lowcountry soil. She learns that she has people. A home. A legacy to uphold. And a great new love story—if only she is brave enough to leave her old life behind.
“. . . a beautifully written story about family, self-discovery, secrets, and forgiveness.” —Kimberla Lawson Roby, New York Times bestselling author
Inspiring contemporary fictionStand-alone novelBook length: approximately 100,000 wordsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this zippy outing from McKnight (All She Dreamed), a humiliated social media influencer rediscovers her roots. Minutes before a planned vow renewal ceremony, beauty influencer Casey's husband informs her he's divorcing her. She takes to Instagram to vent via live video and lashes out at her followers. After the clip goes viral, she takes a cousin's advice and travels to South Carolina, where she hopes to connect with her extended family. In Georgetown, S.C., Casey meets her 99-year-old grandmother Ma Black, along with the handsome Nigel, who manages the family's farm. Ma Black shares the family history, from Casey's great-grandfather's enslavement to his emancipation and eventual purchase of the land that became the Black farm. While Casey grieves the end of her marriage, her family history puts her problems in perspective. (She also grows close with Nigel.) But when a career opportunity brings her back to New York City, Casey must reevaluate her priorities, relying on her grandmother's faith as a guide. McKnight lays out some vivid low country history, and her fully realized characters—especially Casey and her sometimes superficial, sometimes serious trials—ring true. This is perfect for fans of Natasha D. Frazier and Pat Simmons.
