Review - - Willow's Way

Willow’s Way

By Sharon Struth

Publisher: Kensington / Lyrical Press

Release Date: April 17, 2018
Reviewed by Janga

Forty-year-old Willow Armstrong, creator and head of Pound Busters, a weight-loss empire, once thought she was in control of her life, but the past two years have proved her wrong. First, her husband, lieutenant governor of New York, announced during a press conference that he was leaving her for his campaign manager. That blow to her self-esteem and the resulting emotional turmoil led her to revert to eating patterns she left behind twenty years ago, and her thirty-pound weight gain has made her board of directors unhappy. Her move from size six to size twelve is just part of their dissatisfaction. A few days ago, life hit a new low when Willow’s trusted business advisor embezzled both company funds and Willow’s personal fortune and fled the country, a particularly bitter betrayal since Willow had defended him six months earlier when the board wanted to fire him. However, the bite that brought the wrath of the board on Willow and jeopardized her job was a greedily consumed slice of Tony’s extra-cheese pizza captured on video for the world to see. It shattered the all-important image of svelte discipline that Pound Busters was selling. Broke and uncertain of her next move, Willow remembers $8,000 and property in Bitton, South Gloucestershire, near Bath, that she inherited from her mother. They may be her salvation. She decides to journey to England to prepare to sell the property.

Owen Hughes knows what it is like to have your life turned upside down. It happened to him when his ex-wife’s suicide made him the sole parent of a grieving six-year-old daughter. He left his work as a tour director in Europe, returned to his native country, and opened Wanderlust Excursion Cotswold Tours. He lives with his daughter Jilly and her dog, Henry, the last of the Petite Basset Griffon Vendéen hounds that her mother bred, in the same cottage where Jilly had lived with her mother. Owen has taken over as caretaker of the property after his ex-wife’s death in order to give Jilly much-needed stability. That stability is threatened when he learns that the American who inherited the property plans to sell it.

Willow expects her visit to England to be brief, but she is unprepared for the ways the trip will change her life. The relationships she develops with Jilly, Owen, and Henry change her, as do the discoveries she makes about her family past, the grandparents she never knew, and the girl her mother was before she left England. Can Willow find a way to reconcile the more mellow, reflective woman she becomes in England with the driven, ambitious woman who devoted two decades to building Pound Busters?

The second book in Struth’s The Sweet Life series is filled with finely drawn characters who will win readers’ hearts, internal conflicts that foster growth in Willow and, to a lesser degree, in Owen, and a setting so expertly rendered that the reader dreams of signing up for a Jane Austen tour. I especially liked that Willow’s new direction mirrors the changes that have taken place in her but does not eradicate all that she was.

There is a genuine sweetness to the story, but it is never cloying. The connections to The Sweet Life, the first book in the series, are loose but clear enough to place them in the same world. And Struth evokes the Bath area as vividly in this one as she did Tuscany in the earlier book. Wherever she goes next, I’m signing up for the trip.

If you like women’s fiction with likable, sympathetic characters, a strong romantic element, and a strong sense of place, I highly recommend this book.

TLC Blog Tour Review & Giveaway - - The Sweet Life

The Sweet Life

By Sharon Struth

Publisher: Kensington / Lyrical Press

Release Date: September 19, 2017
Reviewed by Janga
  

Five years after her husband and three-year-old daughter were killed in an automobile accident that she herself survived, Mamie Weber has slowly accepted that she owes it to their memory to start living again. When Felix Carrol, a travel writer who writes as The Covert Critic, offers her the chance to substitute for him on a tour of Tuscany, it seems like the perfect opportunity to reclaim her former self and embrace life again. With the blessing of her boss at Atlas Publishing, she prepares to join the two-week tour, intending not only to write the review of the tour in Felix’s stead but also to challenge herself with some adventures on her hastily constructed bucket list.

Julian Gregory is employed by Wanderlust Excursions as a tour guide. He is committed to doing things by the rules, so he is irritated when Felix Carrol’s late arrival keeps the Woodstock Wanderers from departing at the appointed time. When a woman shows up claiming that she is replacing Felix but without the proper authorization, Julian has no intention of allowing her to join the group. But somehow the sadness in her eyes and the urging of the mellow Wanderers persuade the rule follower to become a rule breaker.

Over the next two weeks, Mamie will delight in the glories of Tuscany and experience adventures that include riding a scooter through the Italian countryside and riding in a hot air balloon, but her greatest adventure is opening her heart to Julian and the feelings he awakens in her. Julian has his own secrets and suffers from losses that have shaped his life. After a life of risk-taking, he wants to avoid risks. Can he open his heart and share himself as generously as Mamie dares do? And even if they overcome the obstacles imposed by their differences and their secrets, can two people who live on different continents find a way to stay connected after the tour?

This is a book that succeeds on two levels. First, reading The Sweet Life is a sensory experience as Struth evokes the sights and smells and tastes of Tuscany and the warmth and vitality of Julian’s Italian family and friends. Second, Mamie and Julian are interesting, complex characters whom the reader will find sympathetic and engaging. The wounds inflicted by their losses are deep and serve as a reminder that grief does not operate according to a common timetable. Even as Mamie begins to live again, triggers can overwhelm her with heartbreak. Much of Julian’s life has been shadowed by the deaths of his parents. As these two gradually begin to trust each other, the reader will root for them to triumph over their fears. However, romance readers should be warned that the conclusion is not a traditional HEA.

Beppe, the bus driver, and the Woodstock Wanderers are delightful and add a pleasing touch of levity to the group. Readers who belong to the Woodstock Generation or who are fans of classic rock will enjoy all the musical references. I also appreciated the cross-generational friendship that developed between Mamie, who is thirty-nine, and her tour mates.

Struth excels at creating dimensional characters, vivid settings, and thematic explorations of secrets and trust. She does so again in this introduction to a new series. I give this one a definite thumbs up.

Purchase Links

Amazon | iBooks | Google | Kobo

Link to Rafflecopter tour giveaway.

Link to tour schedule.

Review - - Twelve Nights

Twelve Nights

By Sharon Struth

Publisher: Kensington/Lyrical Shine

Release Date: November 10, 2015

Beryl Foster has built one successful career. After fifteen years with Global Business Solutions, she has become the company’s chief financial officer with an enviable salary and a reputation to match. She has also achieved success in her second career as Katherine Carrington, romance author. Because she fears being known as a romance author would mean being taken less seriously in her day job, only her late father was aware of Beryl’s second identity. However, she takes pride in both her careers. When her boss and mentor GBS announces his retirement, Beryl knows there is a chance that his successor will come from outside the company and will bring his own team, leaving Beryl and other top executives to update their résumés and get the word out to head hunters that they are looking for another position. Even so, she is taken by surprise when her boss names a former GBS employee, Erik Lindholm, to succeed him.

Erik Lindholm is elated to be named the new president of GBS. He is exactly where he planned to be, but he had not expected to find Beryl still with the company. He has practically promised the CFO position to a colleague at his former company. If he fires her, will Beryl see his action as retaliation for her refusing to move to London with him when he left GBS fifteen years ago for the promise of faster advancement? That question acquires new urgency when an accident propels him into Beryl’s personal orbit as well as her professional one.

It doesn’t take long for the feelings Beryl and Erik once shared to reawaken, but career conflicts are still a problem. In fact, they may be more of a problem now since a romantic connection between executives is a violation of company ethics. On the other hand, if Erik fires Beryl, they will be free to date. But will Beryl want to date the man who fired her? Have Beryl and Erik been given a second chance at love or a second time to watch love take second place to their careers?

The reunion trope is my favorite, and Struth gives it a different twist in this tale that combines high pressure, sophisticated living in Manhattan’s corporate world with the warmth and memories of small-town life that still have a place in Beryl’s heart. Beryl and Erik are likeable characters, and I found both the choices that separated them and their different responses a decade and a half later believable. The Christmas season, particularly given the romantic memory of this couple’s first Christmas together, was a sweet touch without becoming saccharine. If you are looking for a Christmas story that is a bit different from the norm, I recommend this novella. Although it is part of Struth’s Blue Moon Lakes series, it can easily be read without having read the earlier book in the series. However, the novella did persuade me to download Share the Moon (Blue Moon Lakes Book 1).

I was disappointed in the ending because I felt that it conformed to gender stereotypes after holding out the promise of an egalitarian relationship. The 3.5 stars reflect that disappointment. Doubtless many readers will think me too doctrinaire and will find the conclusion eminently sigh-worthy.

~Janga