Sing Me Home to Carolina is a heartwarming story of a girl who has to choose between what she thinks she’s supposed to want and what she really wants. The story focuses on learning what is truly important, the importance of family, and second chances.

This was not my favorite read. While I enjoyed the story overall, it felt there were a lot of parts of the storyline happening in tandem in a way that made it a little confusing to follow, and a little unclear what the overall plot or storyline was. It was an otherwise easy read, and I enjoyed Hattie’s perspective throughout.

Thank you to Alcove Press, and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sing Me Home to Carolina paints a heartfelt picture of small-town Southern life and the challenge of balancing family duty with personal dreams. As a Southern girl myself, I felt a bit frustrated with Hattie at first for not wanting to stay home, especially with how deeply her family and their farm need her. But I get it—small-town life can feel stifling, especially with the heartache and embarrassment she’s been through with Lee.

Fox ended up being my favorite character, bringing this steady, good-guy presence and a bit of mystery. I loved how he respects Hattie’s space but is there when she needs him, adding to the emotional depth of the story. The town’s support for Hattie and her family feels like a big, warm hug, from helping out on the farm to rallying together for events to save it.

With themes of family, tenacity, healing, and a bit of rekindled romance, Sing Me Home to Carolina is a sweet, feel-good read. It brings you a front-row seat to small-town Southern charm and the bittersweet tug-of-war between home and heart.

Thanks to Net Galley & the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review

Every now and then you need a palate cleanser when you read a lot of thrillers/mysteries. This is a very sweet, relatively low angst home town romance. While I would have loved to see some things fleshed out a bit better (it seems our female character pretty easily changed direction from Lee to Fox), it was just what I needed to allow my heart to recharge.

In Sing me Home to Carolina, we meet Hattie, a big-city event planner in Charleston, South Carolina. Returning home to Mountain View to give emotional support to her parents whose farm has become infertile and which they are on the cusp of losing. At the same time, the small town is being considered by the state to have a stadium built there. They are in contention with another small town across the river. While there Hattie is the central figure among the residents who have taken up sides against her view of not signing the petition to have the stadium built in Mountain View. What is it like to live in "small town USA"? What is it like to walk down a main street that is no longer much of town given that many of the shops have been closed, their windows broken or boarded up and only 5 shops remain? Where is the pride amongst the residents who live there? This is the focus of the novel .Added to all of this there is Hattie's relationship with her boyfriend, whom she hasn't seen for 11 years and is now back living in Mountain View (at least for a while). This is a novel that the reader can not relate to most probably, but a novel where they can feel the angst, the frustrations and the fear of their lives being upended by progress (or greed). Reading this, gives you food for thought. My thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!!

What a good book! I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I loved the main characters! They had great chemistry and worked so well together. I loved how the book just flowed. My first by this author but will not be my last!!!

I don't read a lot of romance but this novel's cover and description appealed to me. I live in the mountains of East Tennessee. I loved the story. It was fresh and honest and was indicative of the conflict that many have when they are faced with the familiarity of past love and the excitement and possibililies of new romance. Hattie is a good character. She loves her job as an event planner and is torn not just between two loves but two places. She adored the job she had, but now her family needs her and her hometown is facing its own struggle when the state threatens to build an NFL football stadium within its rural bounds. The novel abounds with neat settings; the event center Hattie and her friends create, the beauty shop where fresh donuts are fried, and the hardware store that one of her new friends owns. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the way the author brings the story home in the end. Thanks #joycallaway#netgalley#singmehome for the opportunity to read this book and give an unbiased review.

Sing Me Home to Carolina started out so great, and then slowly went downhill for me. The FMC, Hattie, was so difficult for me to like. She had no real character development but somehow two famous men just fall in love with her instantly?

All in all, it was a cozy read and entertaining due to the other characters and the town drama.

"How can you do all this and not want to stay?"

I picked up Sing me Home to Carolina to have a little break from all the thrillers I have been reading lately, as I needed something different. And this could not have been more different indeed. In Sing me Home to Carolina, we meet Hattie, a big-city event planner who is on the cusp of being made partner if only she can complete one more massive event for her boss, as she goes home to small-town Mountain View to help her parents deal with some devastating news about their farm. Hattie can't quite wait to get back to her own life, when she is made to stay and support the town's effort to protest the construction of a large stadium nearby. As Hattie tries to balance her big-town job with the demands of the town, she needs to figure out what is really important to her, a quest only underlined by the romance in this novel... Hattie rekindles a relationship with childhood sweetheart Lee. But who is the new-in-town, mysterious, and oh so handsome Fox?

I'll say this first, the plot and characters were okay to me. Nothing spectacular, but fun enough for a light read. Big City girl is recalled home to small town country land and needs to figure out whether it is the big city career or the comfortable home life with friends, family and loved ones near i she really wants. Add in a bit of a love triangle, and you pretty much have it. That being said, I absolutely LOVE the feelings of cosiness and warmth, of summer in a small-town, and of a countryside small community Sing me Home to Carolina was able to provoke. If you are looking for sweltering evenings, country style music (and lots of references to it), barn weddings with fairy lights, the feeling of floating down a river to clear your head, and the likes..... look no further, as this one has it all.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I enjoyed reading it. I always love references to North Carolina, and the pacing was very engaging. Also Fox is a great example of healthy masculinity.

My frustration is that the main focus was Hattie's confusion about whether to stay or go. I didn't love how she kept switching back and forth between men (Fox was clearly the superior choice), and it just felt like the whole plot was driven by her inner confusion rather than the major events happening (including the romance). I would have loved to have gotten to know some of the other characters better instead of dwelling on her internal thoughts on whether or not she should stay in Mountain View.

Overall, it was fun to read, but wasn't quite satisfying.

"Sing Me Home to Carolina" is a wonderful story of first loves lost, small towns coming together, and southern charm.
Our main character Hattie, is returning home from her big city event planning job to her hometown of Mountain View, SC to help her aging parents. She runs into an old flame, and a pressing town issue - a national football team wants to build a new stadium in Mountain View, but the residents are protesting. It becomes the town versus Hattie - who thinks the stadium will bring new life and business to their withering town - but doesn't really think about how it will affect her parents' barn if that land is taken.

Hattie rekindles old friendships, old flames, and starts new ones. She realizes that change isn't always bad, and that sometimes it can affect you in ways you would never think of. This is a feel-good, heartwarming story, full of southern love! I look forward to reading more books by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

A cut palate cleanser. I love South Carolina and this book gave me the "feels". I liked the characters and became invested.
I liked the trope of renovating the barn into a building for parties.
Overall, I just had fun with the story.

“Sing me Home Carolina” is such a joyful read! I couldn’t get enough of our main character, Hattie, who struggles with the decision to chase her own dreams in Charlotte or to move back home and help her parents in Mountain View. Her character growth and sweet fighting spirit are sure to make her one of your favorite characters!

If you are looking for a fun, lighthearted book with love, laughter, and a fun twist, this is the perfect book for you!

This is the first Joy Callaway book that I've read, but hey we have the same name so I figured she would be great! :) I loved this book. It was so much better than I thought it was going to be when I first read the synopsis. I also think I related to it because it's set in North Carolina and I don't live far from there plus with the different weddings aspect of the storyline I also related to since I'm in the process of helping plan a wedding. I enjoyed the main character and especially her growth throughout the book of realizing that the town didn't need the stadium and why it would survive without it. I wish there was a little bit more growth with the main character and Fox. I feel like they fell in love pretty quickly but hey, I guess sometimes that is how it happens. Overall, it was a great read and I would highly recommend it. It definitely shows the fun, quirky side of small town living.

I enjoyed this but it's a bit fluffy. Lots of ancillary characters casually referred to that don't add to the story. Character development was a bit shallow, keeping me from really connecting with the characters.
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Joy Calloway is an amazing historical fiction writer but with her next book she proves she can write a sweet romance book too!!!

Hattie returns home to help out her aging parents and quickly gets sucked back in to her quaint, small home town where everybody knows everybody and everybody knows everybody’s business. The town of Mountain View is being threatened to become the next site of the new Carolina Panthers stadium and while most of the residents are against this move, Hattie sees it as a chance for her beloved hometown to rejuvenate itself and stay alive.

Lost love, new love, commitment to family and job and some of the most fun and beloved characters I’ve read in awhile this book had me enraptured the entire time I was reading.

Joy knows how to research and write a gorgeous book and the little details in this book brought back so many memories of my younger days with church cookbooks and the beauty parlor where everyone hangs out. I can not recommend this book enough!!!

Thank you Joy and Netgalley for the honor to read and review this book!!!

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me engaged and it only took a few days to read. I think this is going to be a good book club option for several clubs. I plan recommending to my book friends and I look forward to reading more by this author.

This small-town southern romantic comedy was an absolute delight. I found Hattie to be so relatable, which is often hard to achieve. One of my favorite reads this year!

A Carolina small town fights for survival while facing an imminent polemic stadium project in “Sing Me Home to Carolina”, by Joy Callaway, a story where a love triangle remains undecipherable until the end.
The residents’ involvement in the Norwood’s barn restoration, lead by the heroine, an event planner, is admirable.
In general I enjoyed the cast of characters, although I didn’t particularly like Hattie and Lee.
I liked Fox and the fact the mystery surrounding him lingers until the end.
Hattie’s reactions and feelings towards Lee and Fox seemed often unexplainable and weird. Her indecisiveness is a bit annoying.
And I cannot fathom an event planner forgetting to contact the media…
I found there is too much telling, explaining, and tiring dialogue. I skimmed parts of the story because I lost interest.

I absolutely loved this story. It kept me fully engaged. I was rooting for Fox the entire time! Beautiful story about love, friendship and the importance of a strong community.