Walland is a chick lit fiction novel written by Andrea Thome. India Evans was getting over a disastrous breakup when she and her friend Julia arranged to meet up in Tennessee where they would be spending a girls’ week together at the famed Blackberry Farm in Tennessee. The thick layer of snow on the ground at LaGuardia Airport in New York had her seriously reconsidering the wisdom of this trip, but realizing that Julia had made a special effort to be there for her and would be on her own otherwise, made her keep to her travel plans. India had become understandably nervous about flying after a disastrous flight she and her at-the-time fiance were taking out of Iceland. When the flight attendants actually buckled themselves in, announced that the plane had depressurized and instructed the passengers to don their oxygen masks, India was, like most of the other passengers, in a bit of a panic. When she turned to her fiance, however, she was stunned to see that he was tweeting the situation to his thousands of followers. Granted, they were a celebrity super-couple, she an anchorwoman and he a beloved meteorologist, but his behavior during that flight soured her feelings towards him. How could she have fallen for such a shallow man? India was frozen into inactivity by the publicity and their superstar status and delayed acting until the last minute. When she turned him down on their wedding day, he used that rejection to get even more coverage. She became a reviled woman, and her bosses had actually demanded she take some time off to let things cool down. This trip was her cool-down. When she arrived at the Nashville airport, she was greeted by a number of text messages from Julia, who was begging out due to a sick child. India was at a total loss, but then she met him. He was impossibly good-looking and just happened to be driving her way. And while she was definitely not interested in another relationship, he was not at all hard to look at.

Andrea Thome’s contemporary romance novel, Walland, is a heartwarming and lovely tale about second chances and the risks one just has to take to be truly alive. As I read this tale, I began to wish I could visit Blackberry Farm myself. It sounded like a marvelous place to stay or even get a job at. Wyatt and India are compelling and believable main characters who each have to overcome painful pasts and learn to trust again. Their romance is beautifully poignant as they have to deal with the fact that India is there for only a week and will be going back to New York City when it’s over. Thome gives the reader a real sense of what the natural environment is like in that part of the United States, and her own professional experience as a photographer makes that aspect of the story also feel authentic. Can you fall in love in a day or two, or a week? Wyatt and India’s experiences seem to indicate that it may just be possible, even if that week does fly by extraordinarily quickly. Walland is highly recommended.