Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Boldwood Books, and author Kate Hewitt for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

I’m not a fan of romance novels, as I’ve said often enough. Usually, the ones I like have another good story going on besides the romance whether it’s a mystery or something historic. In the case of Kate Hewitt’s Coming Home to Starr’s Fall, it also deals with adoption.

Laurie Ellis is a young woman who has grown up in the foster care system. She was put up for adoption as a baby. At first, the reader doesn’t understand how, in this day and age where white babies are so in demand, she languished in foster care. Laurie is searching for a place to call home with her dog, Max. The information she has on her birthmother is that she came from Starr’s Fall, so that’s part of what draws her there. She has plans to open a pet store/pet bakery.

Across the street is a bookstore that isn’t really a bookstore anymore. It’s owned by the local “Grinch,” Joshua Reilly. When Laurie’s dog chases the cat Joshua is watching, the two meet and begin an uneasy friendship that may lead to something else.

The feeling of Laurie coming to a small New England town is a familiar one to me. Before now, Laurie really didn’t have a place to call home or any close friends. Almost immediately, the town seems to wrap its loving arms around her. All the while she’s finding her footing, the search for her birthmother is at the back of her mind. As the relationship between Laurie and Joshua grows, she begins to open up to him about her life.

Hewitt does a terrific job writing about the effects of surrendering a child and the difficulties adopted children often face, even when an adoption goes well. That’s not the case for Laurie, and it’s also depicted well. It explains her difficulties getting close to people and trusting them. Landing in Starr’s Fall is a hope to find a place where she finally feels like she fits in, along with the hope of being able to connect with the woman who gave birth to her.

All this talk about what it’s like to be surrendered for Laurie has an impact on one of the town’s older residents, who confides in Laurie that she surrendered a child back in the 1950s and has lived with that secret her whole life. Hewitt does a great job with this angle of the story as she shows the impact of adoption on a woman’s entire life.

The romance here is sweet and gradual. There were no surprises, really, in that department. It’s not all easy for Joshua and Laurie, and that gives it a real feeling. Both have reasons to hesitate to give their hearts to one another. They’ve been let down by the people who were supposed to love them all their lives.

I’ve mostly read (and liked) Hewitt’s historical fiction and I have to say she also writes a good contemporary romance. She gets the small-town feel right as well as the feelings of adoptees who have a hard time finding their place in the world. This is one romance I can definitely recommend.