A tender and touching novel about a young woman who discovers the family she has always longed for when she spends a life-changing summer in North Carolina.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Kristy Woodson Harvey’s A Happier Life, which is out June 25th 2024.
Present Keaton Smith is desperate for a fresh start. So when her mother needs someone to put her childhood home in Beaufort, North Carolina, on the market—the home that Keaton didn’t know existed until now—she jumps at the chance to head south. Keaton’s grandparents died in a tragic car accident before she was born, so she’s eager to learn more about the family she never met. But even though she has help from her charming next-door-neighbor, his precocious ten-year-old son, and a flock of endearingly feisty town busybodies, Keaton soon finds that she has more questions than answers.
1976: After meeting her adoring husband Townsend, Rebecca “Becks” Saint James abandoned the life she knew and never looked back. Forty years later, she’s made a name for herself as the best hostess North Carolina has ever seen. Her annual summer suppers have become the stuff of legend, and locals and out-of-towners alike clamor for an invitation to her stunning historic home. But she’s struggling behind the façade. Becks strives to make the lives of those around her as easy as possible, but this summer she is facing a dilemma that even she can’t solve. And as the end of the season looms, she is brought to a decision she never wanted to make.
As both Keaton and Becks face new challenges and chapters, they are connected through time by the house on Sunset Lane, which has protected the secrets, hopes, and dreams of the women in their family for generations. For fans of Summer of ‘69 and The Notebook , Last Summer on Sunset Lane explores the power of family, the bonds of friendship, and the boundless nature of love.
I will get this promotion or something better,” I whisper as I walk down the gleaming, glass-walled hall of All Welcome, the lifestyle brand I have been working for since I was a college intern twelve years ago. Allison, our CEO—and, well, my hero—is big on the phrase. She claims she has used it to manifest her massive success over the last thirteen years, when she started this brand as a recent college grad. Who am I to doubt her? If I’m going to manifest something, now seems like a good time to start.
Casey, one of our interns, winks at me as she passes me in the hallway and crosses her fingers. Her encouragement boosts me as my stomach rolls with the reminder that Jonathan, the head of HR and my ex, is going to be in this meeting about my “future with All Welcome” too. We broke up about a month ago, after eighteen months of dating, but I still haven’t told my family. I can almost hear my mother’s voice in my head: I don’t like to interfere, but, darling, the man still works for his ex-wife’s company. And you work for him. It is unsavory at best, a recipe for disaster at worst.
Despite my mother’s concerns, I had always felt proud that Jonathan—who was not my superior when we started dating, I might add—Allison, and I have always been able to work together so seamlessly. Allison and Jonathan used to say it was because their relationship was ancient history. And now, so was ours. Because after we moved in together six months ago, Jonathan and I realized that the single thing we had in common was work. Now the three of us are back to being just coworkers. Coworkers with weird personal histories, to be sure, but just coworkers all the same.
I walk to the end of the hall to the smallest conference room. It is the only one that has solid, soundproof walls instead of glass, so it’s the most private. And it’s where most promotion meetings take place. Allison is already there, as I assumed she would be. Punctuality is one of her core values. The others, as I well know, are transparency, honesty, innovation, and excellence. She is a motivational speaker who gets paid in the high five digits each time she flies off to inspire companies and their employees to reach their full potential. She has a huge conference—All-Fest—each year that literally fills an arena, a line of journals and goal-setting notebooks, and has penned four New York Times bestsellers. We even decided to publish her last book in-house. We were nervous, but it went so well that we’re publishing a handful of other meaningful titles this year by other authors in the space.
It’s very exciting. It is also very on-brand for Allison, someone who many, many women aspire to be like. As I open the door, I see that right now—aspirationally—she is walking on the quiet, non-motorized treadmill in the corner of the room. She has exercise equipment in every conference room and her office because she doesn’t have time for regular workouts, but this ensures she can still honor her body and spirit each day—her words, not mine. She is such a badass. I feel the tiniest twinge of guilt that I can’t remember the last time I actually exercised myself.
“Oh, hi!” I say as I spot Jonathan shifting a stack of papers at the head of the table. I thought the breakup would be harder, but since we have had to work together every day since, it already sort of feels like we’re back to just coworkers. Even at thirty-seven, he still has ashy blond hair and big puppy-dog brown eyes. He’s a good guy. Not my guy anymore. But a good guy all the same. He has been letting me stay in the town house we shared while I frantically look for another apartment. Something decent in my price range in New York City is, evidently, hard to come by. And our breakup made me realize I don’t have so much as a friend’s couch to crash on. My parents’ place is a last resort that I hope I don’t need.
Excerpted from A Happier Life by Kristy Woodson Harvey. Gallery Books, 2024. Reprinted with permission.
