Review - - No Place Like You

No Place Like You

By Emma Douglas

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Release Date: December 5, 2017

Reviewed by Janga

 

 

Zach Harper, only son of rock legend Grey Harper and at least a twinkle in the rock universe himself, is returning home to Cloud Bay, an island off the California coast where his father and his Blacklight bandmates all built homes at the height of their fame and where Zach’s sisters and the stepmother who mothered him for most of his life still live. Zach is ambivalent about his return. When the lead singer of Fringe Dweller, the band to which Zach has devoted three years of his life decided to take a year’s break just as the band seems poised to reach their goal, Zach is left frustrated and adrift. He is planning his first solo album but uncertain about how things will work out and fully aware that he has fences to mend with his sister Faith. His most recent betrayal was backing out on her at the last minute when he had agreed to appear at last year’s CloudFest.

Leah Santelli, Faith Harper’s long-time best friend, runs Harper Inc.’s recording studio, works often as a sound engineer, and does a little producing. Recently divorced, she has become more ambitious about taking the producing to a new level. When she learns from Faith that Zach plans to stay on the island to work on an album, she sees that as a chance to move her career in the direction she wants it to go.  But she and Zach have a history—eighteen years of her being his younger sister’s best friend, a few years less than that of Leah having a huge crush on him, and one night of sexual fireworks after which Zach left. He broke her heart, but Leah is over him now. Or so she keeps telling herself.

When the chemistry between them proves to be volatile, it is Leah who proposes a no-strings affair with a built-in expiration date, the day Zach leaves the island. They both know he will leave. Predictably, hearts become involved and things get complicated—on the personal and professional level. Can Leah see that even if her heart breaks, she can find wholeness? Will Zach discover that he has thrown away what he needs most?

This is the third book in the Cloud Bay series, and if Zach had been less of a jerk, I’d consider it a solid read, even if not quite up to the middle book, A Season of You. I like Leah. She is funny, good at what she does, honest, and fiercely loyal. But I thought both Faith and Leah forgave Zach too easily. He wonders early on if he is a “self-centered prick.” He is. He has a pattern of putting his own interests before those of people he professes to love. I understand he experiences a Revelation and is a changed man, but I’m not sure I trust that the change will prove permanent.

I expected this book to end the series, but a cliffhanger ending almost certainly assures that there will be at least one more book. There are also several other characters who seem to be interesting types who deserve their own story, so other possibilities abound. I eagerly await more info about the fourth Harper sibling. If you are a fan of second-chance stories in contemporary romance and a tad less cynical about transformed heroes than I am, you will likely enjoy this well-written story.

A SMP Christmas: Part One - - Deck the Halls / A Season of You / Christmas at Two Love Lane

We're only a little over two months out from Christmas but we're already getting into the holiday spirit here at The Romance Dish thanks to several holiday-themed romances. Today, Janga and I are sharing our thoughts on four new books and two novellas from St. Martin's Press. The first three reviews are below. Be sure to check back this afternoon for the rest! 


Deck the Halls

By Donna Alward

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press / Swerve

Release Date: October 3, 2017

Reviewed by Janga

  

Donna Alward takes readers back to Darling, Vermont, for a Christmas novella featuring George Reilly, a formerly homeless veteran, and a woman from his past. Since he was first befriended by Aiden Gallagher and Laurel Stone (Somebody Like You), George’s life has gradually been transformed. When Laurel first offered him work at the Ladybug Garden Center, his responsibilities were light, but George has taken on more and more responsibilities until he is now Laurel’s trusted assistant set to assume even more duties as Laurel’s pregnancy progresses. He has VA assistance and a small apartment and has made a place for himself in Darling. He is even thinking of celebrating Christmas for the first time in thirteen years. Then Amy Merck shows up at the garden center, asking George to resurrect the past he has struggled to forget.

Fifteen years after the death of her twin brother, Ian, in Iraq, Amy and her parents are still searching for closure. George and Ian met right out of basic training, and the younger Ian became George’s best friend and the little brother he’d never had. Ian took George home to meet his family, and George basked in the warm welcome Ian’s parents gave him and delighted in careless flirting with Ian’s pretty sister. But when Ian died in Iraq, George felt responsible. He couldn’t face the Mercks. He hasn’t seen any of them in fifteen years. His own life fell apart, and it is only in the past six months that George has stopped drifting and found a home. He is terrified by where Amy’s questions can take him, but he cannot ignore her.

Amy has tracked George down, rented a house in Darling for two weeks, and made the seven-hour drive from her home in Brooklyn to find the answers she needs. George may no longer be recognizable as the young soldier she once crushed on, but he is the only one who can tell her about her brother’s last days and how he died. Amy will not give up on finding what she and her family need to put Ian to rest at last. And her heart won’t let her give up on George.

George and Amy are two wounded creatures who need each other, but before they can build a future together, George must forgive himself and accept that his guilt is self-inflicted. The hearts of the Merck family have always been open to Ian’s friend.

Alward’s novella will warm the hearts and activate the tear ducts of readers looking for a contemporary Christmas read with a big emotional punch. Fans of the Darling series will be particularly pleased to see George, whom they have followed from homeless man to productive citizen, get his own story. My only complaint is that the complexity of this story deserved a full novel. I liked the novella, but I was left wanting more.


 

Christmas at Two Love Lane
By Kieran Kramer
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Reviewed by PJ

Kieran Kramer takes readers to Charleston, South Carolina in this first book of her new Two Love Lane contemporary romance series which centers around the lives and loves of three matchmaking best friends and business partners. 

Rumored to be descended from Cupid himself, Charleston native Macy Frost takes her matchmaking profession very seriously even if she has serious trust issues and has never been in love herself. Sexy northerner, Deacon Banks has no interest in finding his true love but could use a few good dates while he's in town visiting his aunt over the holidays. His aunt raised him after the death of Deacon's parents and the only thing she wants for Christmas is for Deacon to settle down with someone who will make him happy, preferably someone well-connected in Charleston society. If Deacon gives the appearance of trying to find his "one," he figures it will buy him time with his aunt. Macy reluctantly agrees to find dates for him but only if he will agree to also give her a chance to find his true love match. Things go awry when Deacon begins to think the only good match for him is his matchmaker, Macy.

Kramer has created a sweet, humorous, leisurely story about two people resistant to love who just can't seem to stay away from one another. There's plenty of push and pull along the way, especially as the dynamic between Macy and Deacon begins to change. I enjoyed Deacon's relationship with his aunt, a character who adds a lot of spice, sass, and heart to the story. I also liked George, his aunt's cook/houseman who is quite the accomplished scene-stealer. Unfortunately, I had difficulty engaging with Macy and Deacon. I liked them but eventually became frustrated with their lack of forward progress. Part of the reason may be due to the length and pace of the story. It's very slow with a lot of two steps forward - three steps back which is not my favorite type of set-up. I probably would have enjoyed their story much more as a novella. But, if you like that pace, give this one a try. It has a lot to recommend it even if it didn't quite work for me. 

One thing I loved about this book was the setting. The author's love of Charleston comes through clearly, evoking the sights, smells, and sounds of this lovely, historic city on the South Carolina coast. It made me want to pack the car and drive down for a visit! 




A Season of You

By Emma Douglas

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Release Date: October 3, 2017
Reviewed by Janga

  

Mina Harper, the youngest child of rock legend Gray Harper, married her high school sweetheart when she was eighteen, shortly after the death of her father. Two years later, her husband, on his way home after a friend’s birthday party at the Salt Devil Distillery, was killed by a drunk driver.  Mina has spent the past three years as a semi-recluse, working her shifts with Cloud Bay’s search and rescue team and maintaining contact with her family, but spending most of her time in her cottage painting. Her yellow Lab Stewie is her closest companion. Mina has no interest in opening her life to someone else whom death might steal from her.

Will Fraser fell in love with Mina Harper when he first saw her. Knowing it was hopeless because she was happily married didn’t change his feelings. Neither does knowing that the last man a woman whose husband’s death was alcohol-related is likely to be interested in is the co-owner of a whiskey distillery. But when Will rescues Mina, she thanks him an invitation to the Harper Thanksgiving feast. Soon mistletoe and Will are giving Mina ideas. But while Mina is all for an affair that may make Christmas bearable, Will is thinking about forever.

Douglas’s second Cloud Bay book is set against the Christmas activities of this island community. Mina’s feelings about the holiday are significant to the story, and the conclusion is practically wrapped in a Christmas package and arrayed with stars. This sweet, slow-paced romance also has its share of sizzle, a combination sure to please readers who like a contemporary story with a real Christmas feel, a well-developed romance, and interesting family dynamics.

Have you read any Christmas themed romances yet?

Are there any in particular you're looking forward to?

Do you have any titles to recommend?

Review - - Need You Now

Need You Now

By Emma Douglas

Publisher: St. Martin’s

Release Date: August 29, 2017
Reviewed by Janga

 

Faith Harper is the middle child of Grey Harper, lead singer of Blacklight, a legendary rock group. CloudFest, a music festival founded by Grey in 1992, has continued to grow, and six years after Grey’s death, the thousands of music fans who pour onto Lansing Island, a small island off the California coast where Blacklight built homes, are a major factor in the island’s economy. Faith is a busy woman. She is the organizer who makes the festival possible, booking the performers and overseeing the countless other tasks that are part of keeping CloudFest a premier music event. She also serves as the public face of Harper, Inc., and she is excited about a new project that will be hers in a way that her inherited responsibilities are not.

Faith, like her older brother Zach, inherited her father’s musical gift, but, unlike Zach, lead guitarist for a rising indie rock group, Faith does not want the kind of life her father led. She likes her life on the island with her mother, her younger sister, and a few close friends and without the frenetic pace and paparazzi-plagued existence that accompanies celebrity, but she is looking forward to her post-festival vacation. A friends-with-benefits relationship ended six months ago when the guy fell in love, and Faith is ready for a vacation fling. She likes sex, but she is not interested in commitment. Because she places a high value on her privacy, she has maintained a policy of no affairs on the island. She has no expectations of meeting someone on the island who will tempt her to break her rule.

Caleb White is one of the elite in the world of professional tennis. After shoulder surgery, he recognizes that it is unlikely that he can continue to perform at his current level of success. Preferring to go out at the top of his game, he announces his retirement shortly after he reaches the semifinals of Wimbledon. As a star athlete, he is accustomed to media attention, but he is not pleased with the media frenzy that follows his announcement. When his friend Liam Sullivan, an entertainment lawyer, invites him to spend part of the summer on Lansing Island and offers a ticket to CloudFest as added inducement, Caleb accepts. Free for the first time since he became serious about tennis at twelve, he accepts Liam’s invitation, looking forward to some down time and perhaps an island fling. He does not expect to be staying at the home of Danny Ryan, once Blacklight’s lead guitarist. Even less does he expect a life-altering encounter with a woman whose name is more famous than his.

Faith and Caleb meet, and the attraction is immediate, mutual and strong. At first Faith is reluctant to get involved, but when she has a meltdown set off by a festival crisis, Caleb proves a more tempting distraction than booze. What starts as an island fling soon becomes more complicated, but Faith has watched too many men she loved leave to trust easily. Can she allow herself to become vulnerable to love?

Need You Now is the first book in the Cloud Bay series by Emma Douglas, aka MJ Scott and Melanie Scott. I had a mixed reaction to this novel. As an introduction to a series, I give it an enthusiastic 4.5 stars. Cloud Bay, the principal town on Lansing Island, and its connection with an iconic rock group makes a fascinating setting. A dozen or so characters are introduced, each with the promise of an interesting story. Grey Harper is dead before this novel opens, but he is very much a presence in the book. Clearly, Faith is only the first of the Harper offspring to have her story told. Faith’s mother, Lou, Grey’s second wife but the matriarch of the family and mother figure to Zach and Mina, Grey’s children by his first and third wives, is intriguing, as is the aging Danny Ryan, semi-reformed bad-boy rock star and protective father figure. Faith’s friends, Caleb’s friend Liam, and various island characters all have potential as protagonists. So, as the start of a series, Need You Now hooks me on a fictional world and leaves me eager for more books set there. In that sense, it is a winner.

However, the novel is less successful as a romance. First, the balance between Faith and Caleb is skewed in her favor. The reader knows a great deal about Faith’s history and her emotions, but Caleb remains largely unknown. The reader is told that he makes some decisions about his post-retirement life, but very little of his process is revealed. The novel is essentially Faith’s journey, and Caleb’s role is a supporting one, more in the vein of women’s fiction than of romance. The conclusion comes with astounding swiftness. I find quick, simplistic resolutions to complex problems unsatisfying. Finally, readers who long for an HEA will be disappointed to be left with a barely there HFN. As a romance, I, after considering a 2.5 rating, gave NYN three stars.

Despite the mix of enthusiasm and disappointment the book evoked, I’m glad I read it. I recommend it to readers who like small-town romance with a bit of an edge, a complexity of characters, and low-key conflict. Next up is the story of Grey’s youngest child, Mina, a twenty-three-year-old widow who has become something of a recluse since the tragic death of her young husband. A Season of You, a Christmas romance, will be released October 3. Zach’s story, No Place Like You, follows shortly (December 5). I have added both titles to my must-read list.