A Little Bit of Grace

August 10, 2020
Fox’s entertaining latest (after the Breakup Doctor series) charts a woman’s journey from her small-town roots in Sugarberry, Mo., to the Florida Keys. After Grace Adams’s husband and law partner Brian McHale asks for a divorce, she moves back into her childhood home three doors down. The lives of the Adams and McHale families have been interwoven for generations, since Grace and Brian’s great-grandparents founded their practice, and Grace and Brian began dating after college. After a client dies, Grace is surprised to find she’d been left a cashier’s check with the balance of the woman’s savings account, along with a note: “Do something for yourself with this.” While processing the news that Brian’s new wife is pregnant, she receives another mysterious note, this one signed “M.” Grace then learns about her estranged great-aunt Millie, a feisty 81-year-old woman whose occupation is giving dating advice for a large online following, and goes to visit her in Cypress Key, Fla. There, Millie transforms Grace’s dowdy wardrobe and proudly introduces Grace to everyone she knows, including the handsome son of one of her clients, making Grace feel appreciated and leading her to wonder why Millie was cut of out the family years prior. As the family secrets emerge and Grace reckons with the past, Fox gives her characters convincing depth. This novel movingly depicts Grace’s new lease on life.