I SIMPLY adored Therese Anne Fowler’s prior book A Good Neighborhood. It was in fact one of my favorite reads of 2019. I, therefore, couldn’t wait to get my hands on her next release..and then I did. I received an ARC from NetGalley called 'It All Comes Down to This' by Karen English, and here is my unbiased review. The beginning wasn’t all that interesting, but the longer I read, the more I became invested in these characters’ lives. It didn’t blow me away, but it was a nice, slow weekend read. When blast-from-their-past C.J. Reynolds, a Southerner with secrets of his own, enters the picture as a potential buyer, EVERYTHING gets more complicated. Will this trio be able to reconcile the past, their present, and move toward a united front in the future...however twisted, tangled, and unnerving their new paths may be?

Coming out of that experience, and with all the difficulties and uncertainties of pandemic isolation and political drama, I needed to immerse myself as much as possible in things that made me happy. So, I read happy books. I watched happy TV shows and movies. And late that summer, I began writing a wryly funny story that I populated with a cast of sympathetic characters, then aimed them at a joyful ending. Contrary to Fowler’s previous books, IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS is a true slow-burn family drama. Though the action is limited, she keeps the plot moving by employing her keen eye for relationship dynamics in marriage, sisterhood and found family." This is my first time with this author and I would give her another try because maybe her other work would be more up my alley.Not exactly what I anticipated when I read in a blurb that a mother's death is drawing a family together. But there are mentions of everything from some uh, less mainstream sexual acts, to prostitution, masturbation...and I won't say any more than that because I don't really need to relive it. I suppose in a sense some of this helped to make 'the plot' work, but trust me when I say the plot drags on and on for a book that isn't particularly long to begin with and had such a strange ending, I had no idea what the author was getting at in terms of character arcs. I don't consider myself a prude by any stretch, but this was not a romance novel, yet it kept attempting to be one and I just got tired of it. Meanwhile, a man has returned to the island seeking a home, staying at the home of an old friend. He wants to buy the sister’s family cabin. But he shares a history with one of them, and it won’t be working in his favor. Well, just like a little newborn horse that stands up on its legs and tries to practice walking, so also, practice the mission this week. Pray for a missionary, offer to pray for someone in the community, serve someone else and tell them that you’re doing so because you love Jesus and Jesus loves them, share the story of how Jesus has changed you with a friend or neighbor; practice the mission. Remember, as you do so, Jesus is with you, to the very end. Mostly, this novel was all those things. It’s a character driven (soap opera-ish novel). And although it moves unsteadily at times - I was involved right up to the conclusion.

While I still enjoy Fowler overall as an author and would consider another book of hers, perhaps books of hers NOT set in the present era are a better fit for me. (or maybe it's 2022 and I can't let the 20's go...TBD!) 😉Oh. Well. I just tried some of that marijuana you brought me. Do you have any for yourself? Are you a secret smoker? If you aren’t, you should be! It will make you feel m-u-u-c-h better.” Until exhaustion and pain had made it impossible to continue, in retirement Marti had been volunteering at Mount Sinai Beth Israel three mornings a week, responding to patient call buttons when the nurses were busy, and keeping lonely people company while they recovered from illnesses and surgeries. Her days had been as full as she wanted them to be, and who could ask for more? No one got to live forever. Her sweet, adored Leo had made it only to sixty-six.