You know that saying about how sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug?

It's true. Take me, for example. I shook the Georgia dust from my feet fifteen years ago, vowing never to leave Manhattan. I traded sweet tea for Chardonnay, fried chicken for nouvelle cuisine, lazy days on my aunt's front porch for ad campaigns and board meetings, and the guy who broke my heart for my handsome boss, who soon became my fiancé. Perfect, right?

Until my sister called. We haven't spoken since I left home-because she married the guy who broke my heart. What's more, she called to say my father is dying-but he refuses to finish until I show up. So I'm back in the hottest, dinkiest small town in Georgia, facing my sister and my old boyfriend over the heads of their-count them-five children. It couldn't get weirder, right? Unless you count Sam Parker-a long-forgotten classmate, now the town doctor-and how good he's beginning to look to me. I'm falling apart, I think, wondering why resentment and wounded pride seem silly here in Walton, where forgiveness and acceptance go hand-in-hand with homecoming. And I'm beginning to suspect that I'm falling in love for real this time, with a man whose touch is so right, I feel like I'm Falling Home.

"Karen White brings us all home in this rich novel about discovering roots and learning the true meaning of keeping the hearts of those you love." —Deborah Smith, New York Times bestselling author of A Place to Call Home