NEVER TOO SOON

An ambitious young woman juggles career success, family, relationships, and friendship in the second installment of the Anaya’s World series.

Anaya Goode has a good job, a loving boyfriend, and a supportive family in sunny Oakland, California. She’s ambitious and working to find additional success as the director of Housing and Community Services for Alameda County. Her team has been tasked with reopening the naval base, which, for Anaya, comes with its own set of personal challenges involving a returning ex-boyfriend and a possibly corrupt colleague. Meanwhile, she tries to balance her work and her personal life as she lives in a crowded house with her father; her Bible-quoting sister Ava, who’s pregnant and jobless again; Ava’s husband, Joe; and their three children. Anaya is simply trying to hold the family together: “If work weren’t enough to drive Anaya mad, she had become the cornerstone of her family since her mom died six years ago—giving financial advice, resolving conflicts (except for the one between her and her sister Ava).” Meanwhile, Anaya supports her close friends Catie and Sophie as they navigate their own obstacles in life. Christy’s novel features a likable, diverse cast of young women, and readers are constantly treated to something unexpected as they attend a baby shower, a work gala, and birthday parties over the course of the narrative. The intriguing story gets more complicated after Jeff, Anaya’s aforementioned old flame, becomes a key team member for the reopening of the naval base. Throughout, Anaya’s struggles with career and family provide plenty of drama. Christy’s prose is consistently approachable and never heavy, even when the subject matter is. Readers who appreciate light fiction with an affable, witty, and determined female protagonist will appreciate this book.

A feel-good novel that ably tackles big dramas.