Review - - A Reason to Love

A Reason to Love

By Alexis Morgan

Publisher: Signet

Release Date: May 6, 2014

  

Corporal Spencer Lang is the dead hero mourned and celebrated in the first two books of Alexis Morgan’s Snowberry Creek series, A Time for Home (Nick Jenkins and Callie Redding’s story) and More Than a Touch (Leif Brevik and Zoe Phillips’s story). In this third book in the series, Spencer, very much alive, takes center stage, and he is filled with rage and an overwhelming sense of betrayal.

When only Spence’s dog tags were found after the explosion in Afghanistan that left his two best buddies wounded, he was presumed killed in action. Instead, he was captured by the insurgents. Only his uncle, a miserable excuse for a human being but his official next-of-kin, was notified of Spence’s survival, and he didn’t bother to share the news. His uncle also couldn’t wait to hit Spence with the news that Nick Jenkins, Spence’s former sergeant and best buddy is engaged to Callie Redding, Spence’s long-time best friend and the woman he expected to marry. Not only have Nick and Leif gone on with their lives without Spence, but it feels to Spence as if they, Nick particularly, have stolen his life.

Spence arrives in his hometown on Nick and Callie’s wedding day with none of his friends in Snowberry Creek aware that he is alive. When he visits his parents’ graves, he finds his own tombstone. He is still reeling from that experience when he is seen by Melanie Wolfe, a high school classmate of Spence’s—and a close friend of Callie’s—who is in the cemetery checking on her father’s tombstone. Melanie is shocked when she realizes that the soldier she thought was a friend of Nick’s in town for the wedding is actually Spence Lang. She keeps an anxious eye on Spence at the wedding and follows him when he roars off on his Harley after bidding Callie goodbye and accusing Nick of a heinous act of theft.

Melanie offers Spence company while he drinks himself blind and a place to sleep off the bender. Eventually, she also offers him a place to live and a job while he decides what he’s going to do with the rest of his life now that his dreams of an Army career and of marrying Callie have ended. Melanie had a typical good-girl-on-bad-boy crush on Spence in high school, but she finds him even more attractive now. Spence is grateful for Melanie’s friendship and uncomfortably aware of her curvy body and fiery red curls, but he still sees her as the proper daughter of an elite family who deserves much more than the man Spence has become.

Melanie has problems of her own. Her father left the family business on the verge of disaster. Melanie is doing her best to save it because she cares about the employees, because it is her family heritage, and because it’s a chance to prove herself to her father who thought she was a helpless girl, but she is handicapped by a lack of knowledge and a lack of funds. It is not the right time for her to get involved with the deeply wounded Spence.

Whatever their rational minds tell them, their hearts and their bodies know that Spence and Melanie belong together. They promise one another that what’s between them is just for the moment, with no regrets on either side when it comes to an inevitable end. But Melanie is a woman with a happily-ever-after longing, and Spence is a man who no longer believes in roots or forevers. Melanie understands what loving without conditions means. It takes Spence longer to see himself as capable of giving and receiving love on that level.

The second chance theme that has permeated this series reaches its richest, most emotional exploration in Spence and Melanie’s story. Spence and Melanie help one another through some difficult times, but they don’t save one another so much as help one another to grow strong enough that each is able to save himself/herself. Melanie wants to be with him, but Spence knows that he has to confront his past alone. Spence does his best to save Melanie’s business, but she knows she has to make the choices that are tied to her past and her future. I loved these characters with their vulnerabilities, their growth, and their well-earned HEA.

This book can be read as a standalone, although reactions to secondary characters will likely be more sympathetic for readers who read the two earlier books. If you like stories that focus on wounded heroes, affirm the healing power of love, and celebrate the joy that can be found when second chances offer happiness more abundant and lasting than lost dreams, I recommend A Reason to Love.

The three wounded heroes that Morgan introduced in the novella “A Soldier’s Heart” have all found healing, hope, and their heart’s home now, but there is still a certain sexy cop in Snowberry Creek with a story to tell. I hope Alexis Morgan will take readers along for at least one more visit.

~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com

Guest Review - - More Than a Touch

More Than a Touch

By Alexis Morgan

Publisher: Signet

Release Date: January 7, 2014

Leif Brevik is in Snowberry Creek, Oregon, to help his Army buddy Nick Jenkins restore the home of their fallen comrade Spence Lang and transform it into a bed and breakfast for Spence’s best friend and heir, Callie Redding.  Leif’s condition is similar to Nick’s when he first arrived in Snowberry Creek. He’s still recovering from an injury received in the same battle in which Spence lost his life. He is also suffering from PTSD, and since the doctors have refused to clear him for active service, his military career may be over. Nick’s invitation offers Leif not only a chance to honor a friend, but also a chance to restore purpose to his life.

Former military nurse Zoe Phillips has her own PTSD issues. Although she has returned to civilian life and is working as a nurse practitioner in Snowberry Creek, she has never really healed from the psychic wounds she received during her time in the military. Her wounds may be less visible than Leif’s, but they are no less real. And she is no less in need of healing and resolution.

Leif and Zoe meet at a party to celebrate what has been accomplished thus far with Spence’s house. The attraction between them is immediate and powerful, but when Leif begins physical therapy, he finds that Zoe is the nurse practitioner in charge of his care. Zoe firmly adheres to professional policies that forbid personal relationships between medical staff and their patients. Zoe’s knowledge of his medical history and physical limitations embarrass Leif and deal a blow to his pride. These obstacles to a romantic relationship between these two may seem insurmountable, but the connection forged by their shared experiences, their instinctive understanding of one another, and the strong physical attraction they cannot ignore prove irresistible. Their path to an HEA is not an easy one.

More than a Touch is the second novel in Morgan’s Snowberry Creek series that includes “A Soldier’s Heart,” a novella that introduces Nick Jenkins, Leif Brevik, Spencer Lang, and Mooch, their four-legged warrior comrade; A Time for Home, the first novel that features Nick and Callie; “The Christmas Gift,” a novella in Christmas on Main Street that is a Snowberry Creek story but not directly related to the three Army buddies. Morgan combines the appeal of a small-town setting with the emotional punch of stories featuring heroes who are veterans scarred by war experience. Her heroes are engaged in rebuilding their lives in a town with a distinctive identity and a full cast of interesting people. The combination is not unique, but, like Robyn Carr and JoAnn Ross, Morgan gives readers characters with flaws, complexity, and a high likeability quotient and confronts them with conflicts that are credible and compelling, thus producing stories that stand out from others in the subgenre.

Leif and Zoe’s story is sometimes painfully real. Both the physical and psychological traumas that veterans carry with them from the war zone are presented vividly. Some studies place the PTSD rate among veterans of the Iraqi-Afghanistan wars at 20 percent, but other experts believe it is much higher. Such statistics, which have been widely reported, give an added level of reality to this story.

More Than a Touch is the kind of book I like best, one that focuses on relationships and allows them time to develop, the kind that keeps the romance central but shows the protagonists within the contexts of other relationships with family and friends. If you like this kind of book too, I think you will enjoy More Than a Touch. While I recommend the series, this book can be read as standalone.

Second chance is a theme that runs through the entire series. The theme reaches its zenith in the third Snowberry Creek novel, A Reason to Love, which will be released May 6. It is the story of Spencer Lang, the hometown hero believed to have been killed in Afghanistan. I look forward to returning to the small Oregon town for Spence’s story.

~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com

Guest Review - - Christmas on Main Street

Christmas on Main Street

By JoAnn Ross, Susan Donovan,

LuAnn McLane, Alexis Morgan

Publisher: Signet

Release Date: November 5, 2013

Christmas on Main Street is a holiday anthology, and, as the title suggests, the Christmas season in small-town America is the theme that links the four novellas included in the collection. Like the song “Home for the Holidays,” the stories range “from Atlantic to Pacific” with a stop inland, and each offers the cozy comfort of a small-town community, a love story with the requisite HEA, and Christmas settings to cheer the hearts of readers.

“Christmas in Shelter Bay” by JoAnn Ross

The wedding of Cole Douchett and Kelli Carpenter takes place in The Homecoming, the first book in Ross’s Shelter Bay series and the story of Cole’s brother Sax and Kara Conway. This novella is a prequel that gives fans of the series back story for characters for whom they have developed affection, and it can also serve as an introduction to the series for readers who have never visited Shelter Bay.

Cole, the eldest of the Douchett brothers and the sensible, responsible one, is on leave from the Marines and uncertain about the direction of his future. But he is certain about his desire to repair his friendship with Kelli Carpenter, the younger sister of his best friend. Cole is not sure what caused Kelli to explode last Christmas, but he’s confident he can regain his place in her good graces. Maybe he can also convince her that the dull school principal that she’s spending time with is not the man for her. Meanwhile, his father and grandfather have persuaded him that time alone at the family cabin is what he needs to get his head straight.

Kelli has been in love with Cole ever since she was old enough to notice boys. She has always believed that one day he would wake up and see that they are meant for one another. But when he showed her the ring he had bought for another woman last year, he shook her faith in their future. Now she is determined to get over her feelings for him. Maybe some time on her own will allow her to start that journey. When Cole’s grandmother offers the Douchett family cabin, Kelli jumps at the opportunity.

The whole town is invested in seeing Cole and Kelli find their way to an HEA, and a snowy Christmas in an isolated cabin may just be the perfect setting for that to happen.

“A Seaside Christmas” by Susan Donovan

Annie Parker runs a shop on Bayberry Island in which she sells mermaid memorabilia including her self-published erotic romance novels about mermaids and sea captains. Although Annie is affectionately tolerant of the island’s mermaid worshipers and makes good use of the legend of the sea captain whose ship was supernaturally saved by a beautiful mermaid, she puts no credence in the magical properties of the huge mermaid statue for which Bayberry Island is famous. Each season when the tourists arrive, Annie selects a lover from among the sexiest male visitors, making sure that he understands her no-man-past-Columbus-Day rule. Annie’s routine changes one stormy winter solstice when the ferry delivers a stranger to the island.

Nathaniel Ravelle has come to Bayberry Island from Los Angeles to do some preliminary work for the cable paranormal reality show, Truly Weird. For the past four years, he has served as a segment producer on the show, but this assignment on a mermaid statue who has been granting HEAs to true lovers since the nineteenth century may be one show too many for Nat, who doesn’t believe in lasting romantic love with or without supernatural aid. Ruing the day he left sunny California for icy Massachusetts, he begins to fight his way to the B&B where he has reservations, only to be distracted by the unusual wares in the window of Annie’s shop. The distraction is just enough to cause him to slip on the ice and fall unconscious at Annie’s door.

Whether it’s mermaid magic or just love’s magic, Annie and Nat are soon breaking all their rules and acting out fantasies that rival the activities of Annie’s characters. Christmas promises to be merrier than these two had even dreamed.

“Mistletoe on Main Street” by LuAnn McLane

Toy store owner Ava Whimsy has been Mrs. Claus in Cricket Creek, Kentucky’s annual Christmas parade for the past ten years, but this year the parade holds a big surprise for her. Santa is not tavern owner Jack Scully but his son Clint, who hasn’t been back to Cricket Creek since he left fifteen years ago.  Not even a fake beard is enough to prevent the sight of her high school sweetheart from speeding up Ava’s heartbeat.

Clint has found nothing in California to compare with the beauty and warmth of the girl he left behind in Cricket Creek, and there’s nothing he’d like better than a second chance with Ava. But can she forgive him for leaving, especially when his dreams of playing major league baseball never progressed past the dream stage.

One kiss under the mistletoe is just the beginning of a reconnection that holds the promise of a lifetime of Christmases together.

“The Christmas Gift” by Alexis Morgan

Bridey Roke left her unfaithful, verbally abusive husband and her job as pastry chef at his family’s fancy restaurant to start a new life in Snowberry Creek, Washington, a few miles from Seattle. She has found contentment in the small town and in creating new pastries for the patrons of Something Brewing, her coffeeshop/bakery. A new man in town has become a regular at Something Brewing, and Bridey admits to herself that he certainly adds interest to the local scenery.

Seth Kyser is burned out from his high pressure, high profile life as a well-known wood sculptor. He has lost not only the joy he once found in creating his sculptures; he has lost the ability to envision the shape in the wood and free it. He bought a log cabin in Snowberry Creek, hoping that the slow pace of life in a small town where nobody knows who he is will restore his creative powers. Finding Bridey Roke is an unexpected gift, and Seth can only hope that offering to build the new cabinets she needs in the kitchen of Something Brewing will give them a chance to become much better acquainted.

This Christmas may just be the merriest Bridey and Seth have ever known, but only if they don’t let his secret identity and her ex-husband sound sour notes in the midst of the beautiful holiday music they are making together.

Three of these authors share Christmas in fictional small towns which will already be familiar to some readers. JoAnn Ross’s Shelter Bay story follows six novels, the fifth book in LuAnn McLane’s Cricket Creek series was released the same day as this anthology, and Alexis Morgan’s Snowberry Creek serves as the setting for one novel with two more in the series to follow in 2014. Only Susan Donovan’s Bayberry Island will be new to readers. (Her first Bayberry Island novel will be released December 3.) While familiarity will doubtless please fans of the series, a reader can enjoy all four novellas without having read the novels that precede them.

All four stories have the charm and warmth readers anticipate in Christmas romance fiction. They are all low on conflict and high on Christmas festivities and sweetness. Donovan’s story predictably is the sexiest of the four, but even it is has a relatively mild level of sensuality. The anthology is designed to be a quick, easy, feel-good holiday reading experience for those who like celebrating the season with Christmas romances. It satisfies on all those counts. I recommend it served with your beverage of choice and Christmas tree lights twinkling in the background.

~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com