Saturday Review: The Next Best Thing

The Next Best Thing

By Kristan Higgins

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: August 27, 2013

(reissue of February 2010 release)

Lucy Lang is the youngest widow in a family in which being widowed young has become a family tradition. Her grandmother was widowed young, and her mother and two aunts, Rose and Iris, are known in Mackerly, Rhode Island, as the Black Widows, a nickname that plays on their maiden name (Hungarian Fekete translated into English as Black) and references the fact that they were all widowed before they turned fifty. Lucy’s husband, Jimmy Mirabelli, died in an automobile accident before they celebrated their first anniversary. More than five years later, Lucy still has not really moved on with her life. She has the training and the talent to make her one-time dream of becoming an award-winning pastry chef a reality, but she has given up that dream to become the bread expert in Bunny’s, the family bakery where her mother and aunts work. She creates desserts for classes she teaches and for friends and family, but she can’t eat them herself because they taste like ashes.

Ethan Mirabelli is the younger brother of Jimmy. He and Lucy are long-time friends. In fact, it was he who introduced Lucy to Jimmy. In the months following Jimmy’s death, Ethan was her rock, the only one who seemed to understand the intensity of Lucy’s grief. A couple of years earlier, the friendship that had sustained Lucy through her most difficult days added another dimension. Lucy and Ethan became lovers. She trusts Ethan to understand that their friendship with benefits doesn’t change her feelings for Jimmy. In fact, it doesn’t even slow down the frequency of her re-viewing her wedding video or enable her to visit Jimmy’s grave. Ethan, who has been in love with Lucy forever, is endlessly patient and nurturing, trusting that in time Lucy will let go of her grief and realize what the two of them share.

When Lucy’s younger sister Corinne gives birth to a daughter, Lucy is made aware of how much she longs for children of her own. So great is this longing that Lucy decides she will reject the family pattern of remaining a widow and look for a second husband. Her primary criterion is that he be a nice guy for whom she will feel a tepid affection but who will not inspire the kind of all-encompassing love that she felt for Jimmy. Such a relationship will provide a father for her children but will not affect Jimmy’s status as her One True Love or put her heart at risk for another shattering. Her new plan requited that she end the benefits stage of her friendship with Ethan, but she is unprepared for how great the loss will be when Ethan accepts her decision by distancing himself from her or for how troubling she finds the idea of Ethan with another woman.

Like all of Kristan Higgins’s books, The Next Best Thing is eminently readable with characters who are believable and generally likeable, family dynamics that are charged with loyalties, friction, twists, and quirks, and humor balanced with some darker emotions. The ethnic references to Lucy’s Hungarian ancestry and to the Mirabelli’s Italian heritage add color and seasoning to the mix. Her trademark animal companion plays a less prominent role than is sometimes the case, but Fat Mickey, the curmudgeonly cat who was a gift to Lucy from Ethan, will surely have his admirers. Lucy’s desserts are so scrumptious that I’m persuaded the descriptions alone sent my scale edging up several pounds.

Despite all these reasons for liking The Next Best Thing, it is still not one of my favorites among Kristan Higgins books. I reread it with the hope that returning to it after seeing Lucy and Ethan’s HEA in process in the second Mackerly book, Somebody to Love (2012), would give me a greater appreciation for it. It didn’t. Lucy still impresses me as neurotic, her epiphany about Ethan’s role in her life still seems too late, and I still worry that Ethan deserves more. I remain an ardent Kristan Higgins fan, but I will reserve my unreserved raves for other Higgins books. Stay tuned for bells and balloons when I review her October release, The Perfect Match, in a few weeks.

Are you ever disappointed in a book from a favorite author? I make a distinction between a disappointing book, one in which I see clear strengths but that still fails to reach the standard I expect from the author, and a book that is either a failure or a Did Not Finish. Do you make such a distinction?

Tuesday Review: A Most Devilish Rogue

A Most Devilish Rogue

By Ashlyn Macnamara

Publisher: Random House/Ballantine

Release Date: August 27, 2013

 George Upperton gives every evidence of being a typical, bored, self-indulgent young aristocrat. He wastes his time and substance drinking and gambling and paying the bills of his extravagant mistress. When his luck turns, it does so with a vengeance. Gambling debts are accumulating beyond his means to meet them, and his mistress announces that she is pregnant. Her brother appears to enforce her exorbitant demands with his fists. When his mother presses him to attend a house party where she plans to introduce him to eligible young women, George agrees, hoping to win enough money in high stakes card games to meet his debts, pay off his mistress and provide for the child, and pay the debts and provide for the family of a friend who committed suicide. It is the last purpose that suggests there may be more to George than appearances indicate.

Isabelle Mears and her young son Jack live in the village near the country estate of George’s friend Benedict Revelstoke (A Most Scandalous Proposal). The daughter of a duke, Isabelle was seduced and abandoned by a rake and cast out by her family when they discovered she was pregnant. Only the hospitality and friendship of a servant Biggles, a healer and herbalist, save her from prostitution. Isabelle is tolerated by the villagers as she helps Biggles prepare and dispense her cures and rears Jack.

George and Isabelle meet when George escapes the house party for a stroll on the beach just as young Jack, a mischievous six-year-old, is caught by a wave and in danger of drowning. George rescues young Jack, but he is surprised when Isabelle responds to the rescue with a mix of gratitude and hostility. She is understandably wary of charming strangers, regardless of how helpful or attractive they are, and George knows that however beautiful the boy’s mother may be, she is a complication he does not need.

The relationship might have ended there had Jack not been kidnapped and a desperate Isabelle approached Revelstoke’s manor house for help. Despite a humiliating scene when one of the guests exposes Isabelle’s shame, George and others commit to searching for Jack. The next day Biggles also disappears. George is Isabelle’s only support during the difficult days that follow with no trace of Jack. The spark of attraction that was between them from their first meeting grows and deepens as they spend time together. But George can’t ignore his other responsibilities, and Isabelle’s pride is an obstacle as great.

Both George and Isabelle are promising characters. I found it refreshing that George is an untitled gentleman, and his suppressed love for music added another interesting dimension to his character. Isabelle’s status as a single mother whose past is common knowledge makes her an unusual heroine, and her years surviving in a world far different than the one into which she was born demonstrate her strength and tenacity. The kidnapping plot was a credible way of placing them in one another’s company and creating an opportunity for intimacy. But I was bothered when character development and the fate of young Jack and Biggles, the only friend Isabelle has had since she was disowned by her family, became mere background for sizzling scenes between George and Isabelle. The Most Devilish Rogue is not a bad book, but for me it is a disappointing one.

Kidnapping plots are common in romance fiction. Sometimes they work wonderfully well, and sometimes they are too clearly contrived. Do you like kidnapping plot? What romance authors have used it most effectively?

Tuesday Review: The Summer He Came Home

The Summer He Came Home
By Juliana Stone
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Release Date: April 2, 2013

It took a funeral to bring Cain Black back to Crystal Lake, Michigan. He left ten years earlier to chase his dream of becoming a musician rather than doing what the town expected their star quarterback to do and accepting a full football scholarship to Michigan State University. Now Jesse Edwards, one of the Bad Boys of Crystal Lake, is dead, killed in Afghanistan. His widow Raine, his twin Jake, his parents, and his life-long friends Mackenzie Draper and Cain are left to mourn him. Cain’s plan is to spend a couple of days in his hometown and then fly back to L.A.  Coming off a grueling six-month tour with his band BlackRock as the opening act for Grind, he needs time to unwind and come to terms with all the changes in his life—the buzz that is propelling him to the success he’s dreamed of, the firing of BlackRock’s drummer and Cain’s co-songwriter, and his divorce from a publicity-addicted actress. But in Crystal Lake he runs head on into old memories and the new woman in town, single mother Maggie O’Roarke. Maybe a summer in the old hometown is just what he needs.

Maggie O’Roarke has found friends and a peaceful life for herself and her young son Michael in Crystal Lake. She cleans houses to earn a living for two of them and works on an illustrated children’s book when she can find the time. Maggie is not immune to the good looks and charisma of Cain Black, but she has no room in her life for the here today-gone tomorrow relationship that is all rock star Cain can offer. And she’s determined that no one in Crystal Lake will know anything about the life from which she escaped. But Cain is more than a rock star; he’s also the man who has her remembering that she’s a woman as well as a mother and has her son happy with all the male bonding over fishing, football, and other guy stuff. He may just be irresistible.

The Summer He Came Home, the first book in Stone’s Bad Boys of Crystal Lake series, is an appealing addition to the small-town stories that are still prevalent in contemporary romance. Crystal Lake has its share of warm, welcoming folks along with a few jerks and bitches, and it is not isolated from the larger world. Cain and his fellow surviving bad boys are sexy, interesting men with a history that evokes smiles and tears. The way they reconnect seemed real and heartwarming. Maggie is a woman still discovering her own strength, and Michael is an endearing kid who acts like a little boy. Supporting characters such as Cain’s mother and Jesse’s widow add interest to the story.

Readers who approach this book looking for a rock star hero may be disappointed since the focus is clearly on Cain in his hometown. His career is background and plot element, but the reader sees almost nothing of that part of his life. Maggie’s secret is one that any perceptive reader will figure out early on. But predictability can be part of the charm of romance fiction, and this is a well-written book with likeable characters who will have readers rooting for their HEA.

Stone reveals just enough about the troubled Jake who has the double wounds of his war experience and his twin brother’s death to deal with and Mac who must confront his own demons of an abusive past and a fondness for the bottle to leave readers hungry for their stories. I confess that the sibling triangle trope in any variation is one that often has an ick factor too high for my taste, but some authors have written stories strong enough to overcome my instinctive recoil. I’m interested enough in Jake to give Stone a chance to persuade me she’s in that company, and so I’ll be reading The Christmas He Loved Her, which releases October 1. I fell hard for Mac and am eager for his story.

If you are a fan of small-town romances or if you like your contemporary romance with a nice balance of sweet and sizzle, I recommend The Summer He Came Home. I predict you too will enjoy Cain and Maggie’s story.

Bad boy heroes seem to be popular in 2013 contemporary romance releases. Who is your favorite bad boy hero?

Tuesday Review: The Wanderer

The Wanderer

By Robyn Carr

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: March 26, 2013

The bad news is Robyn Carr is not giving her readers the three to five new Virgin River stories that they have eagerly anticipated each year but one since she introduced the series in 2007. The good news is that this month, almost exactly six years after the publication of Virgin River (the first book in the series that has earned Carr thousands of new fans and taken her to the top of bestseller lists), she is introducing a new series, Thunder Point, that promises to be just as addictive as the Virgin River books.

Life as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot conditioned Henry Davidson Cooper, Jr., known as Hank but more often as Cooper (sometimes Coop to his friends), to the nomadic life that he has continued since leaving the Army. In Virgin River, California, on a hunting trip with his old buddy Luke Riordan (Temptation Ridge, VR book 6), Coop learns that Ben Bailey, another friend from his Army days, has been killed and that Cooper is named in his will. Cooper wants more details about his friend’s death, and it is that wish rather than a compelling interest in his inheritance that sends him to Thunder Point, a small town on the Oregon coast.

Upon his arrival in Thunder Point, Cooper discovers that while the circumstances surrounding Ben’s death raise questions, the lack of evidence pointing to foul play has led the local coroner to rule the death as accidental. Cooper plans to stick around for only a couple of days enjoying the scenery, but then he learns that Ben has left him a run-down bait shop and bar and a valuable piece of beachfront property highly coveted by developers. Cooper feels that he needs to stay long enough to determine what Ben hand in mind when he left instructions for Cooper to “take care of things.”

Sarah Dupre is another recent arrival in Thunder Point. A search and rescue helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard, she found Thunder Point when she was looking for a place to move to avoid running into her former husband, a chronic philanderer, at every turn. The small town seemed like the perfect spot for her, her sixteen-year-old brother Landon, and their Great Dane, Hamlet. Even though they have been in Thunder Point for only a few months, it’s beginning to feel like home. Sarah is making good friends, and Landon, who has been Sarah’s ward since their parents were killed more than a decade ago, has earned a spot as quarterback of the high school football team.

Neither Cooper nor Sarah is looking for a long-term commitment. Cooper’s history has convinced him that he’s not meant to be a husband, and his residence in Thunder Point is strictly temporary. Sarah, disillusioned about romantic love after the betrayal of her ex who she believed to be ideal husband and father material, is fiercely guarding her heart from entanglements. But the chemistry between them is strong, and the two engage in a friends-with-benefits relationship that soon has them reconsidering the possibilities.

Fans of the Virgin River series will find in The Wanderer the same strong community identity and large cast of secondary characters, each with his/her own intriguing story, that has made the earlier series so beloved. But Thunder Point is more than just a reimagining of Virgin River. Larger and less quirky and isolated than Virgin River, and without Virgin River’s pervasive military connections, it is a distinctly different place—geographically and in other ways.

Thunder Point felt more familiar to me than did Virgin River. The library, the schools, the local businesses ranging from a grocery store to a real estate office, the presence of Golden Arches and neon bell, the citizens who work in surrounding towns, Friday night football games, and homecoming dances—all these serve to make Thunder Point similar to countless other small towns across the United States and to make it different from Virgin River. But the cast of characters promises the same range of stories that exists in Virgin River. A secondary plot involving Deputy Roger “Mac” McCain, divorced father of three who is in charge of the satellite office of the county sheriff, and waitress and single mother of one, Gina James, sews the seeds of the major plot for the next book in the series. A romance between Mac’s Aunt Lou and a younger man and the budding romance between Mac’s oldest daughter, Eve, and Sarah’s brother suggest that Carr will showcase romance at different stages of life, as she did in the Virgin River books.

I’ve been reading Robyn Carr’s books since the days when she was writing historical romance. For years, she was on my list of she’s-so-great-I-don’t-understand-why-she’s-not-more-appreciated authors. I can remember the excitement I felt when I first read Virgin River and believed that it would be the novel that brought her work the attention it deserved. The very success of the Virgin River books means that The Wanderer couldn’t evoke that same excitement. But it has the heart and the soul of the earlier series. The Riordan connection means that there is a link between Thunder Point and Virgin River, as there is between Virgin River and Carr’s even earlier Grace Valley series. 

In short, The Wanderer has everything it needs to make it Thunder Point a worthy successor to Virgin River. I highly recommend the book to Carr fans and to any reader who has a fondness for small-town stories with characters who capture your interest and win a spot in your heart. The first book will be followed by The Newcomer on June 25 and The Hero on August 27. I can’t wait!

If you are a Robyn Carr fan, how do you feel about the winding down of the Virgin River series? If you have not read the Virgin River books, why not?

Tuesday Review: A Bride by Moonlight

A Bride by Moonlight

(Fraternitas Aureae Crucis, Book 4)

By Liz Carlyle

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: 

February 26, 2013

Royden Napier, assistant commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, is a man known for his commitment to justice and his ruthless pursuit of the guilty. He takes pride not only in his own reputation but also in the reputation his father established in the same position Napier now holds.

Called to the death scene of Sir Wilfred Leeton, he finds Rance Welham, the new Earl of Lazonby, and Elizabeth Ashton, a woman who looks strangely familiar. Napier is suspicious of the tale the two reveal of the circumstances surrounding Leeton’s death. He is persuaded Lazonby is as thoroughly villainous as a man can be, but he has little choice but to go along with their story. Most disturbing of all are their accusations that Napier’s father was a corrupt official not above taking bribes to see that an innocent man was imprisoned and within a breath of being hanged.

Elizabeth Ashton, aka Lisette Colburne, aka Jack Coldwater, is a woman who has lost all purpose. More than half her life has been devoted to a quest to avenge the deaths of her father and her sister. She has held Rance Welham (now Lazonby) responsible, and his escape from the hangman’s noose left her obsessed with seeing his destruction. Now she knows that Lazonby is innocent and Leeton, the real culprit, is dead at her hand, she is left with no sense of direction. She fears reprisals from Lazonby once he is certain that Lady Anisha Stafford is safe from scandal, and she knows that the suspicious Napier has the tenacity of a bulldog. The wilds of Scotland seem to offer her only refuge.

Napier is still reeling from the Leeton scandal when the home secretary pressures him to visit Henry Tarleton, Viscount of Duncaster, and the paternal grandfather from whom Napier, like his father before him, is estranged. Napier’s father, Nicholas Tarleton, responded to Duncaster’s casting him off upon because he disapproved of Nicholas’s marriage, by cutting ties completely, supporting his family through his own efforts and even adopting his wife’s surname rather than using the Tarleton name. Napier has no desire to be part of the Tarleton family, but the recent death of Duncaster’s only surviving son, who left only daughters, means that Napier has become Duncaster’s heir. Upon the old man’s death, Napier will become Duncaster, however little he wants the title and the responsibilities that go with it. He reluctantly yields to the home secretary’s pleading and agrees to visit Burlingame, the Duncaster estate, ostensibly to satisfy his grandfather’s wishes but actually to investigate his uncle’s death and the death of Duncaster’s closest friend.

Needing to distract his aunt from matchmaking, Napier decides that he should take his intended bride with him. He promises Elizabeth Ashton that he will protect her from Lazonby and from arrest if she agrees to go to Burlingame in the role of Napier’s intended wife. Elizabeth agrees, but the two decide she should be presented to the Tarleton family under her original name, Elizabeth Colburne, to avoid association with the Leeton scandal and to take advantage of her position as the granddaughter of Earl Rowend. As the two work together to investigate the suspicious deaths, the attraction between them grows stronger and more difficult to resist. But their distrust of one another is equally strong. They have to become willing to drop all disguises and learn openness and trust if they are to claim the future that promises the happiness their pasts have denied them.

Nobody is better than Liz Carlyle at layered, labyrinthine plotting. This book weaves together multiple story strands and a large cast of characters, most of them with their own secrets that complicate the story and intrigue the reader. A Bride by Moonlight picks up with one of the final scenes from The Bride Wore Pearls and offers a different perspective on the hero of that book as well as revealing the ripple effects of Leeton’s death.

Elizabeth’s role as false fiancée is only the most obvious of the screens thrown up by various characters to protect their secrets and advance their purposes.   Carlyle succeeds in achieving the right balance between romance and mystery. The result is a book that offers a sizzling romance between two complex, fascinating characters and a series of mysteries that keep the reader eagerly turning pages. For readers who know Carlyle’s work, it’s enough to say this is vintage Carlyle, definitely a book you don’t want to miss. If you haven’t read Carlyle, you can certainly begin with this one. Wherever you begin with her books, you are likely to find yourself following threads that lead you to other of her books. Such connections are among the joys of being a Carlyle reader.

If I were listing authors whose plotting captivates and awes me, Carlyle would be high on my list. What authors would you include on such a list?

Bonus Review: A Most Scandalous Proposal

 A Most Scandalous Proposal

By Ashlyn Macnamara
Publisher: Ballantine

Release Date: February 26, 2013

Summary from publisher:

After watching her beloved sister, Sophia, pine over the ton’s golden boy for years, Miss Julia St. Claire has foresworn love and put herself firmly on the shelf. Unfortunately, her social-climbing mother and debt-ridden father have other ideas, and jump at the chance to marry Julia off to the newly named Earl of Clivesden . . . the man of Sophia’s dreams.

Since resigning his cavalry commission, Benedict Revelstoke has spent his time in London avoiding the marriage mart. But when he discovers that the Earl of Clivesden has his sights set on Julia, Benedict tries to protect his childhood best friend from the man’s advances—only to discover that more than friendship is driving his desire to defend her. He surprises them both with the force of his feelings, but when Julia refuses him, and her father announces her betrothal, Benedict fears he’s lost her forever—until Julia approaches him with a shocking scheme that will ruin her for all respectable society and lead them into an exquisite world of forbidden pleasures.

My Response:

Ashlyn Macnamara has acknowledged the influence of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility on her debut novel. However, it is an overstatement to view A Most Scandalous Proposal as a more sensual adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. There are marked differences in characters and plots, but the parallels are strong enough for Austen’s influence to be discernible.

Two Sisters

Sense—Julia St. Claire

Like Austen’s Elinor Dashwood, Julia, the younger of the two St. Claire sisters, is the practical sister. Although she sometimes grows impatient with her sister’s excessively romantic reactions, she loves her sister and does all she can to aid her and to comfort her when things go awry. Julia’s own responses are more measured and restrained than her sister’s. Both young women have turned down several proposals, but their reasons for doing so are different. Julia wants a “civilized, sensible union” without the excesses of romantic love. But Julia also fears losing herself if she is overwhelmed by love. Another characteristic that Julia shares with Elinor is that she increases her suffering by keeping the things that trouble her to herself . She is also like Austen’s Elinor in that her feelings remain private with none of the emotional displays to which her sister is prone.

Sensibility—Sophia St. Claire

Sophia, like Austen’s Marianne Dashwood, moves from intense emotional highs to deep emotional lows. She has been in love with William Ludlowe, who becomes Earl of Clivesden, from the moment he “rescues” her during her first season (shades of Willoughby and Marianne). For five years, she has been elated when he noticed her and devastated when he ignored her. He is the reason she has turned down other eligible gentlemen. Austen has Elinor describe Marianne as moving from conjecture to belief, from wish to hope to expectation with no pause to consider the grounds for such movement. The same thing could be said of Sophia. So tender are Sophia’s sensibilities that she swoons when she’s confronted with a difficult moment—twice in one evening. She is incapable of hiding her feelings. Julia wonders how Ludlowe remains unaware of Sophia’s love for him:

How could he miss Sophia’s obvious affection for him? She took no pains to hide it. She might as well lay her beating heart in his lap. . . .

The Worthy Hero—Benedict Revelstoke

Benedict is a childhood friend of Julia’s and has long been in love with her. Their relationship owes nothing to that of Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility. A hero who duplicated Edward too closely would likely have 21^st-century romance readers agreeing with Marianne that the character lacked the proper “fire” to be a hero. Unlike Edward, Benedict is handsome, independent, and well-spoken, and he possesses more than sufficient fire to satisfy contemporary tastes. But he does share with Edward youth, gravitas, and “solid worth.” 

The Older Hero—Rufus Frederick Shelburne, Earl of Highgate

Highgate may be the character in A Most Scandalous Proposal who owes the most to Sense and Sensibility. Like Colonel Brandon, he is older. In fact, at forty, he’s a few years older than Colonel Brandon, who was thirty-five. Also, like Austen’s character, Highgate is a man of honor, substance, and decisiveness. He has a history with the villain involving a woman they both loved. Colonel Brandon shared Marianne’s passion for music, but Highgate and Sophia bond over books, Jane Austen’s books, to be precise. Highgate is fully cognizant of the flaws in Ludlowe’s character and reveals them at the right moment, another detail he shares with Colonel Brandon. He falls in love with Sophia, but is willing to stand aside if it is in her best interest. I rarely envision an actor as a character when I read, but I could see Alan Rickman as Highgate, Colonel Brandon with a PG rating.

The Villain of the Piece-- William Ludlowe, Earl of Clivesden

Like Austen’s Willoughby, Ludlowe/Clivesden is superficially a maiden’s perfect hero. He is handsome, charming, and titled. Few know that he is also a bully, a womanizer, and a card shark who is debauched at the core. Macnamara makes her villain a more deeply flawed character than Austen’s Willoughby. After all, Willoughby eventually acknowledges that he has true feelings for Marianne and he ends a better man for having loved her. Ludlowe/Clivesden willfully humiliates Sophia, and he courts her sister, refusing to accept Julia’s rejection and even using her father to force Julia into becoming betrothed to him. There is no redemption for him at story’s end.

To reiterate, A Most Scandalous Proposal is not truly a “retelling” of Sense and Sensibility, but it does owe a significant debt to Austen’s first novel. Macnamara’s characters may well evoke the shadows of Austen’s in the eyes of readers familiar with Sense and Sensibility.

I have reservations about some of the Austen-inspired work that has filled bookstores in recent years. This is my favorite kind of Austen derivative, a novel that borrows from Austen, without mutilation, to create a story that is clearly the author’s own. I enjoyed this book. Fans of Sense and Sensibility may find a particular pleasure in it, but I don’t think it’s necessary to know the Austen novel that inspired it to find this book a good read.


Are you a Jane Austen fan? If so, what’s your favorite Austen-inspired novel?

Tuesday Review: The Best Man

The Best Man

By Kristan Higgins

Publisher: Harlequin

Release Date: 

February 26, 2013

Faith Holland is returning to her hometown of Manningsport, New York, after three and a half years in San Francisco. Except for seven brief visits for holidays with her family, Faith hasn’t been back since she left after being jilted literally at the altar when what was supposed to be the perfect wedding of the town’s golden couple turned into a stage for the groom’s coming out of the closet. But her social life in San Francisco has been a series of disasters, Faith’s siblings are convinced their widowed father is about to fall victim to a crass golddigger, and there’s an old stone barn on the family’s property that Faith is itching to turn into a site for weddings and other events. For all these reasons and because she has missed her family and the family vineyard, Faith has come home for a two-month stay, but she never expected Levi Cooper to be the first person she saw upon her return.

Levi has also returned to Manningsport. After a period of distinguished military service, he’s back, serving his hometown as chief of police. Levi and Faith have known each other since they were third graders, but Faith was Princess Super-Cute on the hill, a member of the Holland clan, one of the town's founding families, who had owned the land on which their vineyards stood for generations. Levi was trailer trash, the only son of a hardworking single mother. It was not until their senior year of high school that they were thrown into each other’s company by Jeremy Lyon, a transplanted Californian whose wealthy family owned the vineyards that bordered the Hollands’ land. Jeremy, a big-hearted Mr. Perfect, ignored the class divisions that separated the kids in the trailer park from the kids on the hill and claimed Levi as his best friend. Since Faith and Jeremy were an item almost from the moment he came to her aid during one of her epileptic seizures, Faith and Levi spent a great deal of time in one another’s company, never exactly friends but always uneasily aware of each other.

Eight years after high school graduation, Jeremy had completed medical school, Faith had finished her training as a landscape architect, and the two were about to be married in a wedding all of Manningsport had been anticipating for years. Levi, a decorated soldier on leave for the occasion, was Jeremy’s best man. He was also the one who stopped the wedding and ended Faith’s dreams of the perfect life she and Jeremy would build. Can Faith ever move past that moment? And if she can, can Levi trust her to be the one person he loves who doesn’t leave him?

In The Best Man, Kristan Higgins gives readers a story that combines scenes worth of a twenty-first-century Lucille Ball with scenes that will have readers reaching for a hanky to catch the tears. Faith is a wonderful heroine, funny and flawed and endearing. Levi is a total guy--uncomfortable with emotions (his own and those of others), deeply committed to taking care of problems, and a better man than he himself will ever recognize. These are characters who will engage readers' attention and capture their hearts.

But Higgins gives readers more that a great romance in this book; she gives them a complete world set in a place so real one can see the clouds over the lake and smell the grapes growing on land saturated in family history. Beyond Faith and Levi, Higgins includes a large cast of quirky characters, each of whom possesses a distinct, individual presence. Faith’s large family (three generations of them), Levi’s co-workers, the citizens of Manningsport, Jeremy Lyon, and Blue (There has to be a dog. This is a Kristan Higgins story.)—each adds something special to this book. I fell in love not just with Faith and Levi but also with the place and the people to which they belong. I hope The Best Man is the first in a series because I want to go back to Manningsport.

What’s the last book you read that led you to fall in love not just with the protagonist but with the fictional world he/she inhabits?

Tuesday Review: Crystal Cove

Crystal Cove

By Lisa Kleypas

(Friday Harbor, Book 4)

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Release Date: 

February 5, 2013

Justine Hoffman is a hereditary witch with untapped powers and a limited knowledge of witchcraft. After a nomadic upbringing, Justine has found contentment as the owner of Artist’s Point, a bed and breakfast on San Juan Island, but she longs to experience a deep romantic love. So intense is her longing that she tries to cast a love spell. When that doesn’t work, she turns to the ancient Triodecad, a particularly powerful grimoire, and it reveals that a geas, a lifetime enchantment, has been placed upon her that condemns her to living her life without the love for which she yearns. Consumed with anger over the injustice, she breaks the geas without understanding the repercussions such an act will have.

Jason Black, a reclusive billionaire who made his fortune in the video gaming industry, has rented Artist’s Point for five days for himself and a small group of people who work for his company, Inari Gaming Enterprises, who are on the island for a series of meetings. Only Jason and his executive assistant know that he has a secret reason for being at the bed and breakfast. Jason is a man without a soul, a circumstance that means not only that his lifespan is likely to be abbreviated but also that death means the end of his existence since there is no part of him beyond his physical existence. His only hope of changing his situation lies in the Triodecad, which he plans to steal. But when he meets Justine, their connection is so powerful that she immediately becomes far more than a means to an end.

Justine is horrified to learn that in breaking the geas she has placed Jason under a death sentence since because the man truly loved by a hereditary witch always dies young. Justine’s desperate attempt to find a way to save the man she loves results in a broadly comic scene and in a poignant one. But can even a love as powerful as the one Justine and Jason share prove stronger than the magical force that threatens their union?

This is one of the most difficult reviews I’ve ever written. I’m a Lisa Kleypas fan; she has been an autobuy author for me for many years. And there is much in this book that I love. I love the friendship between Justine and Zoe. I love the passage Zoe read from Connie Brockway’s The Other Guy’s Bride. I love Justine and Jason, individually and together. Justine is immensely likeable—nurturing, quick-tempered, loyal, and vulnerable. Jason is a Kleypas alpha—confident, protective, commanding, but capable of great tenderness—with an Eastern touch that makes him a bit different. I prefer to see relationships that build, but I could accept the instant compelling attraction that exists between these two.  But the witchcraft element just distanced me from the story.

Kleypas has moved more deeply into paranormal territory with each of the Friday Harbor books, from none in Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor to the magical realism of Rainshadow Road to the ghosts of Dream Lake and now to witches in Crystal Cove. As a critic, I find the progression interesting, but as a romance reader, with this last book I’ve moved into a place that I don’t want to go. Also, and this reaction may be because the characters hit a sensitive spot with this particular reader, I was not amused by the redneck, backwards Arkansas witches with their Elvis altar cloth. Just sayin’. . .

This fourth book is also the most sensual of the Friday Harbor books. There is a light bondage scene that some readers will doubtless find hot. I confess my reaction was a big sigh accompanied by the exclamation “Not another one!” Bondage scenes appear to be becoming as ubiquitous as oral sex in romance fiction. But that’s a single scene and certainly not the only one that gives the book a high sizzle factor.

Kleypas’s prose is wonderful. She has been at her most lyrical throughout this series, and in Crystal Cove particularly she has her characters say some of the wisest and most moving words about love that I’ve encountered in romance fiction. After reading the passage from Brockway, Zoe says:

Sometimes real life is even better. Because love is there not just in the big romantic moments, but in all the little things. The way he touches your face, or covers you with a blanket when you’re taking a nap, or puts a Post-it note on the fridge to remind you about your dentist appointment. I think those things glue a relationship together even more than all the great sex.

And Jason’s thoughts as he and Justine part after what may be their last time together:

One of the more ignominious features of love was that you could only express it with clichés... it made you sound like a fraud at a time when you were blazing with sincerity But at the end of the conversation, he found himself saying, 'I love you,' and she said it back.

And it was enough. Those three well worn, everyday words got the job done."

So do I recommend this book? If your favorite Nora Roberts series is the Three Sisters Island trilogy, I highly recommend it. If you prefer your witches under eight and dressed for trick-or-treating on Halloween, you might want to approach this one more cautiously. I remain a devoted fan of the Friday Harbor books and of Lisa Kleypas generally. I’ll preorder Lightning Bay, which is set for release on September 13, 2013. But I do hope it won’t feature vampires or shape shifters.

Are you a fan of paranormal romances? What’s your favorite witchy romance?

I am one of Lisa’s Divas and received an ARC of Crystal Cove as a benefit of belonging to this group. (I hope I’m not drummed out of the group for posting this review.)

Tuesday Review: The Autumn Bride

The Autumn Bride

By Anne Gracie

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: February 5, 2013

Max Davenham is still a schoolboy when his uncle is killed in a riding accident, leaving the eighteen-year-old Max the new baron. He has yet to adjust to becoming Lord Davenham when he learns that the uncle he thought was wealthy has not only gone through the family fortune, including his wife’s jointure and jewels, but has also left enormous debts. Despite his youth, Max accepts the responsibility that has been thrust upon him. He will do what he must to protect his aunt and save his ancestral home. Nine years later, a year earlier that the deal he struck with a wealthy merchant called for, Max has paid his original debt. The trading company in which he is a partner has bases all over East Asia, and Max, Lord Davenham, has succeeded beyond his expectations. When a letter from an old friend of his aunt’s awakens concern, he decides that it is time he returned to London.

Abigail Chantry, a governess who finds delight in her young charges and in reading used books in a London bookshop on her half-days off, thinks her younger sister Jane has just accepted a new position as companion to a vicar’s mother in Hereford. But when a battered maidservant brings the news that Jane, a beauty not yet eighteen, is in a “bad place,” Abby finds that Jane has escaped from a brothel. When Abby brings Jane, another young woman who also escaped the brothel, and the battered maid to her room, she loses her job. Abby’s slim savings are all that stand between the four women and life on the streets, but the four pledge to become a family and face their challenges together. When Jane falls ill and there’s not enough money to secure medical help, Abby turns thief.

She chooses a house she believes to be empty and climbs in through a window, hoping to find some small object that can be pawned for enough to buy medicine for Jane. Instead she finds Lady Beatrice Davenham, confined to her bed, left in filth and near starvation by servants who are robbing her and keeping her isolated from the friends who might help her. Abby not only leaves without stealing anything, she is so troubled by Lady Beatrice’s situation that she returns, bringing soup with her. When Lady Beatrice hears Abby’s story, she invites Abby and her “sisters” to live with her. Only when she is persuaded that she can indeed help Lady Beatrice does Abby agree. She takes over management of the household and dismisses the crooked servants. She and her sisters, who have assumed the surname Chance, work to see that Lady Beatrice’s physical and mental health improve. Life takes a decided turn for the better for all concerned, and a genuine affection develops between Lady Beatrice and the Chance sisters.

When Max hears from the man of affairs he’d left in charge of Lady Beatrice’s finances that a strange woman, claiming to be Lady Beatrice’s niece, has taken charge of the household and fired all the servants, he prepares to confront the imposter. Suspicious of her motives at first, Max soon learns that Abby Chance and her sisters have been his aunt’s saviors. Nevertheless, he’s displeased with his aunt’s plants to foist these strangers onto London society as her nieces, but he soon find himself thinking of Abby far too frequently than is good for a man of honor who  is betrothed to another woman. Abby finds Max’s lordly manner infuriating, but she soon discovers that there is much more to this “dark Viking” than his arrogant assumption that he knows best. And the more she learns about him, the greater the danger to her heart.

A blend of humor and poignancy marks The Autumn Bride as distinctly the work of Anne Gracie. In this first book in the Chance Sisters series, the author has woven another tale of complex family relationships, delightful secondary characters, and a love great enough to win over all the obstacles life throws in its way. I loved everything about this book—the “sisters” who create a family out of affection and need, the hero as disillusioned boy and as honorable man, and the gallant, all together wonderful Lady Beatrice, who almost steals the book from the lovers.

From page one, I was engaged with this story. When Abby assures the three younger girls that “It doesn’t hurt to dream,” and the four share their dreams of what they want from life, I was in up to my heart. By the time I reached Abby’s meeting with Lady Beatrice, I had fallen in love with all the main characters. I didn’t allow a small thing like the need to sleep keep me from the story. I finished it in the wee hours, knowing that Anne Gracie had created another world that I would want to visit again and again.

Gracie not only entertains with her trademark warmth and wit, she also leads the reader to consider the very definition of family and how the tangled bonds of this relationship enrich and complicate lives.  The novel is filled with different kinds of family groupings—the Chance sisters, of course, but also nephew and aunt/substitute mother, father and daughter, and friends as family. As the series continues, I expect this theme to yield new insights. I look forward to them. Gracie has said that the story of Damaris and Freddy is next. Damaris is a mystery I’m eager to learn more about, and Freddy—ah, Freddy! He reminds me a bit of the Honorable Frederick Standen (Cotillion by Georgette Heyer), one of my favorite heroes. I can’t wait for Book 2.

What books have you read that have made you consider the definition of "family"?

Tuesday Review: When Summer Comes

When Summer Comes  
By Brenda Novak  
Publisher: Harlequin Mira  
Release Date: 
January 29, 2013  

Callie Vanetta has been diagnosed with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Without a liver transplant, she has six months to live, and as an only child whose parents suffer from debilitating diseases, her chances for a transplant are slim. Determined to make what well may be the last summer of her life as normal as possible, she decides not to tell her parents or her friends about her illness. She turns her photography studio over to her assistant and retreats to her grandparents’ farm, ostensibly to prepare it for sale.
 

Levi McCloud returned from Afghanistan with all the usual psychic wounds of war plus some. He left home and joined the military at eighteen to escape his abusive father, a martial arts master who viewed his only son as a means of achieving the championship status denied to him by injuries. Estranged from his father and rootless, he has spent the months since his discharge traveling the country on his motorcycle, stopping only long enough to earn money at odd jobs sufficient to buy food and to maintain his motorcycle. His motorcycle breaks down outside of Whiskey Creek one night, and he is attacked by two pit bulls. Bleeding profusely from wounds inflicted by the dogs, he seeks help at Callie’s farm.  

At first frightened by this stranger who avoids her questions, refuses to be taken to a hospital, and runs when sheriff’s deputies show up, Callie soon decides that helping him is positive action she can take even if she is powerless to change her own situation. She offers Levi food, work and a safe place to heal and to repair his motorcycle. Ignoring the concerns of her friends, she offers him sanctuary in her home and, a short time later, in her heart. With the help of one friend to whom she reveals the truth about her medical condition, she manages to keep her illness a secret even from Levi, who caught up in protecting his own secrets.  

Callie and Levi are sympathetic, likeable characters. Even readers whose believe their own reactions to the kind of medical diagnosis that confronts Callie will understand why she makes the choices she does. She wants to enjoy what may well be the last months of her life with those she loves seeing her not her disease and she wants to spare them the anguish of an extended farewell. Levi’s troubled childhood and the guilt he carries from a forbidden romance that ended tragically make his decisions comprehensible too. Although romance readers will be prepared for Callie’s survival, the poignancy of her physical and emotional struggles is real, as are the obstacles she and Levi must overcome.  

This is a sweet romance, and it’s a solid addition to an entertaining, emotionally satisfying series. Novak’s lead characters are all distinct individuals with stories that capture the reader’s interest and touch her heart. In a culture as mobile as American culture has become, this circle of lifelong friends who care about one another and whose lives are intertwined will have a decided appeal for many readers. Some readers may find the ease with which they interfere in one another’s lives more intrusive than involved. I confess that I belong in the latter camp. I have lived most of my life in the small town in which I was born. Many of my closest friendships stretch back to kindergarten and grade school. We know a great deal about one another, but I can’t imagine any of us at any point in our lives holding “interventions” because we disapproved of someone’s romantic choices. Although I was less bothered by this kind of behavior in When Summer Comes than I was in When Lightning Strikes and When Snow Falls, it remains an irritant in a series that I have enjoyed otherwise.  


Heroes and heroines with potentially fatal diseases are rare in romance fiction. Some readers find such characters off putting; others find them realistic and sympathetic. What do you think?

Bonus Review: The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home

By Mariah Stewart

Publisher: 

Random House/Ballantine

Release Date: January 29, 2013

 Ellis Chapman has come to the small town of St. Dennis, Maryland, to try to put her life back together. Reared as the daughter of wealthy investment banker Clifford Chapman, accustomed to a privileged life of designer clothes, prestigious private schools, and first class accommodations on her world travels, she has nothing left—not even her name. When her father and fiancé were revealed for the thieves they were, Ellis lost her home, her car, her jewelry, and her bank accounts. Even though the FBI and SEC found her innocent of any involvement in her father’s illegal dealings, since even her salary as public relations director for CC Investments came from ill-gotten gains, she was allowed to keep nothing from her former life. For the past year, she has lived in the Boston townhouse of her best friend, Carly Summit, the only friend who stood by her when the scandal broke.

But the time has arrived to get on with her life, and the first step is to sell the house in St. Dennis that has been left to her by her mother. Because Lynley Sebastian bought the house and set up bank accounts to pay taxes, upkeep, and utilities out of money she earned as one of the first supermodels, it has not been confiscated with the Chapman assets. All Ellis has to do is meet the terms of her mother’s will by living in the house for six months, and then she’ll be free to take the money from the sale and construct a new life for herself. Only the family lawyer, Jesse Enright, knows that she is Ellis Chapman. To distance herself from the scandal and its devastating effects, she has chosen to be Ellie Ryder in St. Dennis, a New Yorker who bought the house from Lynley Sebastian’s estate for the express purpose of flipping it. Ellie expects her contact with the citizens of St. Dennis to be minimal, and so she feels no guilt about deceiving them.

Contractor Cameron O’Connor always thought he’d be the one to buy the historic house on Bay View Road when it was sold. He’s kept an eye on all these years, fist for Lilly and Ted Cavanaugh, then for their niece Lynley Sebastian, and lately just in memory of all the kindness the Cavanaughs showed him. His profession helps him appreciate the historical significance of the house, but it’s his personal history with it that is responsible for the emotional tie he feels. At first, he begins to help Ellie make repairs because he expects to buy the house from her, but the more time they spend together, the greater the attraction he feels for her. But the questions keep mounting too. Why is a woman too broke to pay someone to make the repairs she clearly is unqualified to do herself driving a Mercedes? Can it be mere coincidence that Ryder was also the maiden name of Lilly Cavanaugh? Why does Ellie look so familiar?

Ellie’s intentions to stay uninvolved during her stay in St. Dennis don’t last long when she’s confronted with the friendliness and good will of the townspeople. Visits to deliver cupcakes and freshly baked bread, invitations to beer and bakery tastings, and First Families Day, and the attention of a certain hot contractor all lead to St. Dennis feeling more and more like home. Add a dog that comes to say and the family secrets that link Ellie to the house in surprising ways, and she is soon establishing roots in what was supposed to be strictly a temporary refuge. But will the welcome and friendship extended to Ellie Ryder be there for Ellis Chapman. Can she create a home here for the young half-sister she has just discovered? Will Cameron be interested in Ellis Chapman? These are the questions Ellie longs—and fears—to have answered.

The Long Way Home is the sixth book in Mariah Stewart’s Chesapeake Diaries series. Ellie and Cameron appear to be ordinary, likeable people, but appearances are deceptive. Both have things in their pasts that brought them shame and pain. Both know what it means to be at the center of shocking events they had no part in creating, and they both have to learn to trust enough to share their secrets if they are to have the life they want. Like the other characters in this series, these protagonists reveal that life in this small town is anything but simple and uneventful. More sweet than sizzling, this novel is a welcome addition to a series that blends heartwarming romance with layers of mystery.

Readers who have been following the series will enjoy the new story and delight in catching up with characters from the earlier books. Lucy and Clay’s wedding is a particular treat. Readers who like the small-town series of Robyn Carr, Emily March, and JoAnn Ross will likely find in Stewart’s St. Dennis another place that makes them long for a return visit.

The small-town romance trend shows no signs of fading. It seems that almost every month brings a new entry for the subgenre. I’ve lost count of how many I read regularly. How do you feel about small-town settings? Are you happy to see more, or are you ready for more big city scenes?