Kayla Rae Whitaker’s Returns and Exchanges (Random House 2026) is likely going to wind up in my top five reads of the year – most definitely in the top ten. Spanning 1979-2015, the novel follows one Kentucky family – a rags to riches to reckoning story of resilience and risking it all to be seen, all carried on the back of the family matriarch, Fran Taylor (née Baker).
When Fran is 16, she runs from her home (and brothers) without looking back, joining her sister, Luce, who clawed her own way out of their home and into a better life. Fran drags Fred along with her, and they get married. Under Fran’s guidance (and with Luce’s money and some other investors), they build an empire with their chain of discount stores, Baker-Taylor’s. The novel opens with them on the precipice of an expansion like they never would have imagined. Fran makes the company what it is, and Fred just basks in the glory of it all.
Fran and Fred have four living children. Sam and Josiah grew up before the money started rolling. Benny and Birdie have few memories of those years; their childhoods were marked with glitz, glam and money.
As the novel moves forward, different POVs provide the rise and fall of the family. It starts with Fran, who has done everything for the stores, her husband, and her children. And she is exhausted. When she goes to one of their stores for a meeting with a derelict GM, she meets one of their employees, Wendy. Fran is instantly smitten with the woman, and she is confused and fascinated by her feelings. That chance encounter marks the beginning of the end of Baker-Taylor’s, though it will take years for the empire to crumble. But it also marks the beginning of Fran.
I loved this family, except for Fred, and I was sat to see how their lives would play out. It’s a family saga, so it’s going to sting, but what a beautiful family saga it is. Even Fred gets somewhat of a redemption – because no one person is all bad or all good, we’re all grey.
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 