Bless Your Heart, Rae Sutton - by Susannah B Lewis (Paperback)

Thanks to Thomas Nelson & NetGalley for a digital advance reader's copy. All comments and opinions are my own. If you like southern fiction with Christian values, sweet tea, and themes of family and restoration, this is the book for you. Recently divorced and grieving her newly deceased mother, Rae Sutton brings her teenage daughter Molly Margaret back to live in the house where Rae grew up, in the small town of Whitten, Alabama. Rae’s passion is finding and restoring old furniture, as well as renovating and redecorating houses, and her mother’s house is ripe for change. Before she passed, Rae’s mom Margie wrote several encouraging letters for Rae, placed strategically throughout the house and shed. She knew Rae would need support as she grieved not only her mama, but also mourned the loss of her marriage. Rae is continuously reminded by many of the book’s characters that we are never too old for restoration. “Mama had talked about this in the letter she left for me in the shed. She talked about restoration and making old things new. It sounded cliché, but my heart was like that old armoire or the furniture I found at the junk store or on the side of the road. Beaten and battered. Bruised and dented. Worse for the wear. I was mourning the loss of my dear mother, and my husband. And some days I didn’t know how I’d get out of the bed. I didn’t know if my heart, my mind, would ever be restored.” In an additional plot point, fifteen-year-old Molly soon joins her new high school’s basketball team, and when the coach meets Rae, there is mutual attraction. Is Rae ready for a new romance? She finds herself joining in her mama’s “ministry,” a group of older women who meet monthly for lunch, prayer, and gossip. Mrs. Fannie, Mrs. Dora, and Aunt Maxine provide Rae with love and affirmation. They are mother figures who counsel her and pour their wisdom into her, the same way her own mother had done. Christian faith and supportive encouragement help Rae to learn throughout the novel. As she heals from her broken marriage as well as the loss of her mama, she is continually reminded by friends and family: “You have a gift of making old things new. You have the gift of restoration. That fit was evident after your divorce, too. You restored your life when it was so broken and made things new for you and Molly.”