REVIEW: DEAR CAROLINA, BY KRISTY WOODSON HARVEY

 

 

 

What constitutes a true family? For Frances (Khaki) Mason, a busy interior designer with an antiques store and coffee table book publications, her family with her husband Graham consisted of a son, Alex, from Khaki’s first husband who had died. Their desire for another child had not yet been realized.

Meanwhile, Graham’s cousin Jodi, at nineteen, found herself pregnant and struggling with her addictions. She wanted to try to do better than her own mother had, but after just a few weeks, she made a hard decision.

What Khaki and Jodi decided to do would make some people cringe. But adopting little Carolina, and then allowing Jodi to continue as part of that family, turned into the best solution for all. Jodi had her own little trailer, and visited regularly. Later, she moved in with them for a while. Ultimately, Jodi made her own dreams come true when she enrolled in college.

Dear Carolina is the story of that blended family, and alternate narrators, Khaki and Jodi, reveal the struggles, the victories, and the gifts they found along the way. Eventually, Khaki struck a better balance for her life and her family, selling some of the holdings in Manhattan, and continued to include Jodi as part of the family in some fashion or another.

I enjoyed this book and the characters, and the Southern feel was brought out in the cookbooks and canning that Jodi did, as well as the homespun world they all inhabited. 4 stars.