cover image A Simple Kindness in Flatsboro

A Simple Kindness in Flatsboro

Heather Norman Smith. Kregel, $17.99 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-8254-5564-3

An ex-pageant queen discovers beauty is more than skin-deep in the sweet if unsubtle latest from Smith (Songs for a Sunday). Thirty-seven-year-old former beauty queen Della Rose Miller flees an unhappy marriage for her ho-hum North Carolina hometown of Flatsboro. There, she runs into Andy Clark, a former friend whom Della Rose was forced to reject in elementary school because her superficial father thought associating with him would ruin her pageant dreams. Andy, a lifelong Flatsboro resident, now spends his days stocking the town’s food pantry and quietly ticking off items on his “do-good” list—until he saves a child from an accident and earns recognition from the entire community. As Della Rose begins to see Andy in a new light, she’s inspired by his faith to grapple with her own challenges, including her stalker ex (“If Andy Clark could forgive her for what she’d done to him and be such a good and giving person... maybe there was something to the God he claimed”). While Smith’s beauty-is-on-the-inside message can be too on-the-nose, readers seeking a touching story of faith and redemption won’t be able to resist the heartwarming friendship at the novel’s center. It’s a tender ode to small-town morals and second chances. (Sept.)