One Summer in Savannah explores the notion that although one act can irrevocably shape our future, that doesn't mean it has to define who we are or who we have the potential to be. Intricate, and beautifully written with complex characters, Terah Shelton Harris has penned a study on love and family, both the ones we're born with and the ones we choose.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this Advance Reading Copy.

Sara never expected to return home to Savannah after being sexually assaulted eight years earlier. Daniel, her assailant, is still serving a prison sentence for the crime, and neither he nor his family knows that he has an 8-year-old daughter. But Sara's father is terminally ill, so she and her genius daughter, Alana, make their way back to her home town to help with her father's bookstore. Sara is determined to keep Alana's existence hidden from the Wylers, whose matriarch continues to deny her son's culpability and who dragged Sara through a difficult trial that threatened her reputation and her sanity. It turns out that Daniel has a twin brother, Jacob (he had changed his name from David to distance himself from his brother), whom Sara meets and to whom she is gradually attracted.

This is a complicated story surrounding the concept of forgiveness. I had some difficulty with Sara's father, who speaks only in poetry, as I am not a big poetry fan. Also, I felt that Sara's character was not sufficiently fleshed out to make her relatable. And the twins' mother was a one-note harridan. I did, however, especially like Alana, a true child prodigy who can relate to adults much more than children her age, and who is on track to solve one of the "unsolvable" mathematical equations by the age of 18. Also, I found Jacob to be a fully realized character who kept me engaged. The last chapters of the book are a full-on sob-fest, in which I couldn't help participating. Overall, I enjoyed this unusual story from a debut author.

My thanks to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review of this book.

This story was very interesting, but the pace had me losing interest at times. I kept going and I am glad I did. This book was compelling and I am happy to have read it.

Quite frankly, I never expected to like this book as much as I did. And I did, five stars worth.

The story itself was difficult: Sara was raped years ago. She left her hometown, her father, in order to protect her daughter and herself from the family of the man who raped her. Now, nine years later, she’s back to help her father.

Fate puts Jacob in her path, Jacob, brother of the man who ruined Sara’s life.

But was Sara’s life ruined? She has a beautiful daughter. She’s back home with her father, despite the circumstances surrounding his health.

The story is very well written, very visual, very emotional. We feel it all: Sara’s fear, her distrust, the gradual relaxing of those rules that have surrounded their lives for the last eight years. We feel her friendship turn to love as she gets to know Jacob. We understand why it’s hard for her to trust in that love, considering what’s between them and their families.

I honestly started to read this with the intention of it being nothing more than a work assignment, but I was drawn into the story, and really wanted it all to work out in the end. Despite knowing what was going to happen, despite leading us kicking and screaming to the end she created for these characters, the author created a world I fell in love with, and I’m so glad that I read this book.

Thanks to Sourcebooks for the ARC. All opinions on my own.

WOW. This is Terah Shelton Harris’ debut novel and I just have to say bravo. This is by far the best book I’ve read this year.

Why 5 stars:
- I loved every single part of this book. The southern setting, the characters, the drama, the heartache… all of it.
- My only complaint is that it wasn’t long enough. I need more. I just really need more.
- This is a story of forgiveness, betrayal, sacrifice, family, and love all set in one of my favorite places on earth, Savannah

“They are connected, even at other ends of the universe, intimately connected, across time and space.”

Thank you SO much NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this ARC and thank you Terah Harris for sharing this beautiful story with the world. I’ll be in a book hangover for the foreseeable future, k thanks.

I have never read a work of fiction that so perfectly encapsulates just how complicated, painful, and joyful the human experience can be all at once. Each character grapples with forgiveness in their own ways, at their own pace. This book was unbelievably beautiful and it has immediately become a staple on my recommendation list.

Ebook/Women's Fiction: I had a pretty good idea how this book was going to end, but I wanted to know the journey.
First, read the forward. Just do it.
This book just came out so no spoilers, just how the novel made me feel. As a disclaimer, I got an ARC from Netgalley and the author is an acquaintance of mine. The book is a simple plot with emotional baggage. There are family secrets on top of family secrets. I liked that I didn't have to do an eye roll at any time. I liked the characters and I especially liked the humanism of the last few chapters.
I do recommend this book.

When I turned the final page, I sat and tried to absorb the feelings and emotions from this impactful and powerful story. Harris has taken a story that needed to be told and ripped my heart to shreds.

Fair warning – you need to be open and willing to read about the aftermath of a sexual assault. Trust me when I say, I was nervous too, but this author takes a tragedy and creates a miracle. It is truly a stunning story.

Harris has taken the raw and gritty and gifted us with heart, compassion, healing, forgiveness, and love. Set aside a quiet weekend and read this with tissues and an open mind. One Summer in Savannah and Harris is amazing and brilliant! Brave and compelling! And that ending is nothing short of bomb-tastic!

This is the best read of 2023 so far! Harris has just put her name in lights!

A stunning and emotional novel about trauma, healing, and love. Sara and Jacob are unforgettable characters!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

One Summer In Savannah is a beautifully articulated book about love, growth, forgiveness and family. Sara returns to her hometown of Savannah, Georgia after being gone for 8 years. Sara was sexually assaulted at 18 years old and as a result has a daughter, Alana. Although sexual assault may be a trigger for some people I think the author wrote about it in a raw and refined manner.

As much as I loved the story itself, there was one big thing that I struggled with and that was how Sara’s father speaks ONLY using poetry. If I was a big fan of poetry I may have understood what he was saying but I’m not so it kind of bothered me. Otherwise I think this was a beautiful story and bonus points for the choice of setting!

Where do I even start?? This book was amazing, heartfelt, heartbreaking and bittersweet all rolled together. I laughed, cried and wanted more when it ended.

I went into this book blindly but it’s basically a story of love and forgiveness. Sara has a secret child she’s been keeping from the world ever since that awful drunken night at a party where she was taken advantage of. Although determined to never set foot in Savannah again, she’s reluctantly back due to the deteriorating health of her father. She finds herself enjoying her time with her family while also slowly getting to know the twin brother of the guy that assaulted her 8 years ago. There’s some type of deep connection between the two of them but will Sara continue to run away from her past or decide to face it head on?

One Summer in Savannah is richly and beautifully written. With quietly complex characters and very real themes of forgiveness that readers will relate to in many ways, the writing is lyrical and the setting of Savannah, Georgia, very alive. It's a story that you think about when you're not reading it and that stays with you long after the last page. Massive kudos to author Terah Shelton Harris for pulling off a difficult topic (the consequences of rape) in a loving, open way. I rooted for all of these characters--an impressive feat!

Many thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark, NetGalley, and Terah Shelton Harris for this advanced copy of the book!

Such a great read! I highly recommend it! First, over the years of being an avid reader, I discovered that I was not into poetry. I loved books, but poetry has never done it for me; however, using poetry in various portions of this book as a means of deep communication and connection to the literary world amongst the characters was such a beautiful touch! Terah did an exceptional job at literally painting a story! The way she used her words made the characters and scenes vivid in my mind as I read. How she described the various settings in Georgia reminded me of what Delia Owens did in Where the Crawdads Sing. The characters were so well-developed and multi-layered. Terah nicely captured Sara and Jacob's stories in this two-person POV storytelling. With the complexities of their histories and current lives, I thought about moral decisions and what I would have done in their situations. It was a very thought-provoking read. The story was about resilience, forgiveness, and strength. And do not get me started on the last sentence of the book. It was so cute and sobering how it ended! Just beautiful!

A beautifully-written, thoughtful, emotional, and unique novel. The premise is quite heavy, so I was a bit anxious at the start, but the tough topics were handled with great care and gave me a lot to think about in terms or forgiveness and justice. I'm not big on poetry, so I sometimes skimmed over those pieces, but I could see how they add to the story. I'll definitely keep an eye out for more books by Terah Shelton Harris.

Thank you to NetGalley and Amazon for the ARC.

Trigger: rape

When Sara was younger she was raped by Daniel and she got pregnant with Alana but had fled Savannah and only her family know about Alana. Now Sara’s Dad is not doing well and she has come back to Savannah but is trying to hide Alana from Daniel’s family so they don’t try to take her, but that’s hard to do when she starts to fall for Daniel’s brother Jacob…

This heartbreaking book was such a good read. Get your tissues ready if you pick this up. It deals with lots of heavy topics but there are also some lighthearted moments. Looking forward to the author’s next book.

📚 Book Review 📚

One Summer in Savannah
by Terah Shelton Harris
@terahsharris
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
(5/5 stars)

This review was almost impossible for me to write, simply because I’ve been left utterly stunned and speechless. This debut novel may be the most exceptional one I have ever read, and I can barely form the coherent sentences necessary to convey my feelings about it. Nothing I say here will do it justice, so I’ll just say what’s foremost on my mind.
The author is up front in her beginning author’s note about the tough subject matter this book covers. Our main character, Sara, was raped as a teenager and becomes pregnant as a result. Believe me when I say this delicate plot was handled with immense care and sensitivity. The assault occurs off-page and almost a decade prior to the story we read here, which allows the reader to be distanced enough from it for it to be digestable. What unfolds is a story about two families forever connected and damaged by what has happened. There are so many layers but they all intertwine and fall together impeccably. I can’t say much in detail without giving spoilers, but this book is best read not knowing much ahead of time anyway.
Simply put...I loved this story, and I loved these characters. They will stay with me for a very long time. The character Jacob in particular will root into your heart so deeply, he’ll never leave. I beg of you not to be put off by the subject matter- what you will gain by reading this book will make it so worth it. When you reach the final page, you’ll want to go right back to the first to start the book all over again. Every word of this book is absolute perfection.
A HUGE thank you to @netgalley and @bookmarked for allowing me to have this advanced copy. I’m eternally grateful.
*Pub date: 7/4/23

Firstly I want to commend the author on writing about such a controversial subject and I was especially thankful of the authors note in the very beginning, it was thoughtful and genuine. This story is written from dual POVs which I enjoyed. I also enjoyed how most of the characters were layerd and I loved the timeline of the 2 main characters.
I didn't like end. It almost felt like info dumping to me and a little unrealistic. Although I know ones journey with SA is different, I didn't like how the main characters stance changed right at the last minute when throughout the entire book she was very head strung on that particular subject.
Overall I did like the book and found myself wanting to know what was going to happen to all the characters in the end. It didn't deliver in the way I thought it would, but I did like it.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

This is a beautifully written book dealing with complex relationships within and between families. Characters are well developed and quite unique and memorable. The story moves at a good pace and is hard to put down once you get into it. The main theme is forgiveness and all of its complexities.

Definitely one for your TBR list for 2023.

4.5 stars, rounded down because I rarely give 5 stars.

Will definitely be looking for more from this author.

In her debut novel, One Summer in Savannah, Terah Shelton Harris has taken two people distantly connected by the thread of a common story and interwoven their lives in a way that defies what many might expect, but that is human, believable. The book features an interview with the author, where Harris shares that she wrote this as an exploration of the concept of forgiveness, and has done a stunning job developing the characters, and leading the reader through the many layers and complexities of their lives, both independently and interconnectedly. The story features smartly-written characters, the unique style of conversation-via-poetry presented through a smaller character, and heart-rending scenarios that ring true and will keep you engaged.

Two families – one prominent and powerful – are forever changed by an act of violence. Among their number, two are propelled far from home, one spends years of his life incarcerated, and yet another, unable to stand up under the weight of the prior death of one child and the distance of the other two, ends his life.

Through well-developed characters, Harris gives us insights into the impact of one terrible decision, and how it can ripple across multiple lives. One Summer in Savannah asks you to consider how the victim of a crime continues forward with their life, how this effects their own family, and to offer this same consideration for the family of the perpetrator, a rare perspective. Readers are shown how tragedy can intersect with fear and make us reconsider our lives, and how making space to see each person as their own self (not merely a piece of a larger family unit) can help us better understand ourselves.

I anticipated the reader would explore forgiveness from a first-person perspective, and instead, Harris also shows us through the eyes of others, the shape it can take with different people, the varied timing that each of us requires, and how considering broader context for those we struggle to forgive can help us reach this point. This requires (and is developed through) empathy, trust, vulnerability, and the understanding that one can arrive at forgiveness without any evidence of change or contrition from the offending party. Ultimately, forgiveness is for the harmed, not for the one who caused the harm. It is not an approval or excusing of the wrongdoing; it is freeing oneself from the tethers of anger and condemnation.

Some may find the outcome of the story unrealistic or unbelievable, and that is reasonable; we each bring a unique history to everything we read, and that history informs how we are impacted by the story laid before us. Not everyone could reach the place where Sara and Jacob find themselves, but were they real people, they would likely agree that neither would have ever predicted that their lives would intersect, much less overlap, or how they would come to understand and offer forgiveness. What one could never do, others could; that’s true of most anything we encounter in life. Because of how Harris writes her characters, the humanity she imbues them with, the faults and frailties, in addition to strengths and successes, the outcome of these characters we come to know so well is wholly believable for me. I can’t say if I would find myself reaching the same outcome, but how Harris directs the storyline and where she leaves us as the story closes, does not stretch reason, and could instead force us, the readers, to consider how we see, approach, and offer forgiveness in our own lives.

Thank you so very much for an advance copy!

This book was written so interestingly. Unfortunately for me, I felt like the dad speaking in poetry really threw me for a loop and kept taking me out of the story. And the "falling for the R's brother" was pretty uncomfortable for me.