New Book Alert: Saving Grace (Fox River Romance #4) by Jess B. Moore; Be Thankful for This Moving Book About Romance and Family Secrets

New Book Alert: Saving Grace (Fox River Romance #4) by Jess B. Moore; Be Thankful for This Moving Book About Romance and Family Secrets

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Holidays are the times that bring out the best and worst in people. Either friends and family get together and keep people up to date while reminiscing about old times and enjoying the food and fellowship of those days or they live in hotbeds of trauma, conflict, and tension with buried hostilities that explode.

Thanksgiving in particular can be a scene of conflict. Amidst the turkey eating, the family visiting, and the Black Friday shopping, that finely decorated table of good china becomes the center of plenty of arguments, rivalries, and secrets left out in the open.

Jess B. Moore’s novel Saving Grace is about that. A family reunites for Thanksgiving, but brings up old resentments and secrets that challenge their current lives and romances.
The family that has the Thanksgiving from Hell are The Grace Brothers. In their small town of Fox River, North Carolina the Grace Family had something of a reputation. Their father was an alcoholic criminal. The boys were frequently abused and went through school with reputations as bullies and juvenile delinquents.

Years have passed and two of the brothers settled into respectable lives. Asher has become the serious head of the family and has a wealthy girlfriend, Annabelle Dare. Hudson has grown into a lovable goofball and peacemaker and has a cute-as-a-button daughter, Emily.

Unfortunately, their brother Brandt has suffered the most from the family reputation and continues to bring animosity wherever he goes. In fact, Asher would prefer that Brandt not be at the Thanksgiving dinner hosted by him and Annabelle. But Hudson reassures Brandt with “F#@k it, it's Thanksgiving.” Sure enough Brandt is going.

On the way, Brandt encounters Lola Donovan, a schoolteacher who remembered the brothers from when they were kids. Lola has a reputation of being a good girl with a close family. However, Lola has her own secrets that she tries to keep from her family. Her family knows that she broke up with her long-term boyfriend, Vincent, but they don't know exactly what happened: that Lola cheated on him.

During Thanksgiving dinner, Brandt and Lola encounter each other trying to keep their obvious chemistry to themselves. However, Asher makes his point clear that he doesn't want Brandt to mess with Annabelle or Lola.

So in the vein of any romance, Lola and Brandt disobey the warning and become a couple.

Saving Grace is a sweet romance with two very damaged but likable characters. While Brandt is someone who is saddled with a bad record and reputation, he is also sincerely trying to rebuild his life. He finds his gift in tattoo art. He bonds with Emily and has some sweet moments teasing the little girl. While he is initially uncomfortable with Annabelle because of her wealth, Brandt warms up to her willing to spend time with her and Asher, enduring Asher’s derision. When he and Lola get together, he becomes a thoughtful and understanding boyfriend sympathizing with her earlier lapse in fidelity.

However, Brandt still suffers from the pain of his troubled childhood. He still remembers his father's abuse and how he helped him with his criminal activities. Brandt tries very hard to rebuild his life, but there is always someone to remind him who he used to be.

Lola too emerges as a good love interest for Brandt. She is recognizable in her town because of her prominence as a teacher, her family which play at the local bluegrass festival, and her remarkable eyes where one is brown and the other blue. Since she is well known in Fox River, she is concerned about what other people think. She never told her family the circumstances of her break up with Vince partly from shame, but also because he is still a friend of theirs.

Lola is a very warm-hearted individual. She enjoys talking about books with Emily and clearly loves teaching. When Brandt tells her that he has been evicted from his apartment, she lets him temporarily live at her home. A bit of a plot hole occurs that she does this not too long after she and Brandt meet, but the sudden offer could be attributed to the fact that she has known Brandt for years and due to her own kind nature. Plus, it helps that Brandt doesn't stay too long at her place and moves in with another friend.

Lola also tries to break through the animosity that the Grace Brothers share helping to bring them together while withdrawing from a romantic relationship with Brandt because of her own guilt of how her previous relationship ended.

Moore does a brilliant job bringing many of the supporting characters to life as well. Annabelle is kind of dizzy but is never an entitled snob. She just feels out of place when her expensive gestures make others feel uncomfortable.

While Asher could be a one-dimensional killjoy, he is instead someone who has spent his life taking care of his family and enduring his father's abuse. He has been the de facto parent for so long that, he doesn't know how to let go of his now-grown brothers.

The Fox River setting is described in a way that is recognizable for anyone who grew up in a rural community. There are some beautiful descriptions of autumn leaves and snowy landscapes. There are the town traditions that people participate in whether they want to or not with music, dancing, food, and good times.

There are also some genuinely kind folks that know each other from school, church, or the local supermarket that would do anything to help each other.

However, Moore also captures the dark side of such a community. There is judgement from the locals which motivates much of Lola's behavior. We see the lack of job opportunities that draws people away from the town in which they grew up towards a more accommodating life out of town.

There are the poor families that are derided as trailer trash and ignored even when violence occurs. Then when those kids grow up, we see the stigma never really disappeared as these former kids try to rebuild their lives that have been branded by history.

There is also the closeness between residents that can embrace but also suffocates those who want a different life elsewhere and are unsure how to pursue it without hurting anyone in the process.

Saving Grace is a sweet love story with a realistic setting. It is a book to be thankful for.