New Release: Southern Sunshine by Natasha Madison

Southern Sunshine is book 8 in a series and continues telling the stories of a second generation. The prologue for this story picks up where Amelia and Asher’s story (book 7) left off, but then advances the timeline 6 years with Reed Barnes and his once upon a time friend/crush Hazel returning to their hometown at the same time.

A word of caution – if you have not read at least some of the books in this series, I would not start here. This is a fairly quick read – and while Reed and Hazel’s story is self contained, the very large secondary cast and various interactions need the back story of the series to make the most sense.

I liked Reed and Hazel as individual characters and feel like their story has a lot of unexplored potential. The overall story in Southern Sunshine is hopeful and has a definite “feel good” vibe, but there were several elements that struck me as unrealistic. Some of these were “real life” things and others had to do with the timeline of the story. The conflict between Reed and Hazel and it’s resolution was just too quick and easy for me given the situation.

For me, this falls into the category of “I enjoyed it, but…. Based on the epilogue here, it seems like the timeline for the series will be jumping again. I am curious to see where things will be headed next.

Meet Natasha Madison