Review - - Between You and Me

Between You & Me

By Susan Wiggs

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: June 26, 2018

Reviewed by Janga

Caleb Stolz always had a thirst for knowledge and a longing for a larger world than his Amish community in Middle Grove, Pennsylvania. When he was old enough, he left, but when his older brother John, his protector from their abusive father when they were children, and John’s wife are robbed and murdered, Caleb returns to Middle Grove to care for his young niece, Hannah, and her younger brother, Jonah. Caleb stays because the devout John wanted his children brought up in the Plain style, but Caleb himself has never accepted baptism and remains inside the community but separate from it. When eleven-year-old Jonah is mangled by a piece of farm equipment, Caleb defies community rules and has the boy life-flighted to a Philadelphia hospital.

Reese Powell, a fourth-year medical student, is working in the emergency room when the helicopter carrying Jonah and Caleb arrives. Reese is the only child of two renowned physicians, an infertility specialist and a neonatologist, who expect their daughter to specialize in pediatric surgery and join their practice. Reese is beginning to wonder if she really wants what her parents want for her, or if the medical career she really desires is one quite different from her parents’ plan. Jonah and his out-of-place uncle stir her compassion, and she befriends them. She is drawn to the bright courageous Jonah and his laconic, handsome uncle. As Reese spends time with them and the friendship deepens, her conflict between the kind of medicine to which she is most drawn and her need to please her parents intensifies.

To her parents’ dismay, Reese chooses a residency in rural medicine near Middle Grove, and her friendship with Caleb, already touched with romantic overtones, grows into love. But when Hannah’s secret is exposed and Caleb’s burden of responsibility becomes greater, the cultural differences between the two seem insurmountable. Can Caleb turn his back on love and settle again into a community where the shunned Hannah and Jonah, adjusting to life with the prosthesis his grandfather and others declare the devil’s work, are becoming increasingly unhappy?

Susan Wiggs has created another compelling, emotionally rich story centered on themes of family and community. The clash between two cultures is at the heart of this one, and Wiggs does a superb job of treating both cultures fairly. She shows “all that was good about Amish ways—family and community, working the land and living close to God.” But she also shows the narrowness and rigid judgment of a community that would deny a young boy the means to save his life and to improve the quality of it after amputation, a community that would turn a teenage girl into a living ghost because she transgressed their laws. She shows contemporary urban culture with its knowledge and sophistication and its medical marvels, but she also shows its dangers and the restrictions and judgments that can be imposed by family and society.

Wiggs’s characters are engaging and multidimensional. The differences between Reese and Caleb are great, but so are their similarities. At heart, they are the same kind of person, and they both understand the pressure of family expectations. Jonah will steal reader’s hearts with his confusion, his bravery, his loyalty, and his vulnerability. Hannah, frightened and hurting yet with a certain strength, is also endearing. All these characters are so real, the reader will want to give them a hug.

If you like women’s fiction that takes a less traveled path and offers memorable characters and a powerful story that touches upon large issues such as guilt and shame, abuse and forgiveness, responsibility and choice, I think you will enjoy Between You and Me as much as I did.

Review - - Map of the Heart

Map of the Heart

By Susan Wiggs

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: August 22, 2017

Reviewed by Janga

 

 

Camille Adams lost more than her husband when he was killed in a climbing accident five years ago. Before Jace’s death, Camille had been adventurous and daring. She and Jace had traveled, eager to try the next risky sport, to test their powers, and to meet each new challenge. But after his death, Camille became cautious and fearful of risks for herself and for those she loved. She is overprotective of her fourteen-year-old daughter, Julie, doing her best to protect Julie by eliminating risks from her life. Once a gifted and enthusiastic photographer, Camille stopped taking photographs and becomes known for her work with found film, winning fame for salvaged images of a shy First Lady, a species of penguins now extinct, and a murder in progress. Unwilling to let go of her idealized memories of Jace, she has moved through her years of widowhood controlled by her grief and fear, a shadow of the woman she used to be.

Julie is troubled by more than the restrictions her mother imposes. The target of a mean girl’s bullying, she has grown isolated from her former friends. School is a torturous experience for her, and her grades have dropped. Finding solace in food she has gained weight and is convinced she is fat and freakish. She is an adolescent in crisis. Camille is slow to recognize Julie’s problems and can do little to help once she does become aware of them.

The catalyst for change in Camille’s and Julie’s lives arrives in a trunk sent to Camille’s father from his native France. Photographs of her father as a child and of the mother who died when he was an infant reawaken old memories and raise questions about Henri Palomar before he became Henry Palmer. Henry decides to return to Bellerive and the farm he inherited for the first time since he emigrated to America at eighteen. Diagnosed with cancer two years ago, Henry is in remission, but the likelihood of a recurrence has given him a strong sense of his own mortality. He is determined to spend the summer in Provence, and he wants Camille and Julie to go with him. When Julie’s problems at school escalate, a summer in France sounds like the best idea for her, and Camille, already concerned at the idea of her father traveling alone, reluctantly agrees.

The summer leads Henry to truths about his past, provides Julie with the acceptance and friendship she needs, and allows Camille to reconnect with Malcolm Finnemore, an American expert on tracing the provenance of lost soldiers and a visiting history professor at Aix-Marseille University in Aix-en-Provence. Not only does Finn possess the skills Camille needs to help her uncover her father’s past, but he is also the first man to remind her of all that she is missing by refusing to move on with her life. Woven into this mix of romance and family stories is the story of Lisette Galli Palomar, Henry Palmer’s mother, and her life during the Nazi occupation of Bellerive.

Susan Wiggs has proven her talent for seamlessly linking stories of a family’s past and present in her Bella Vista Chronicles (The Apple Orchard and The Beekeeper’s Ball). She does so once again in Map of the Heart.  Lisette’s story adds poignancy to a novel saturated with loss and recovery. All of the primary characters are dealing with loss on some level. Henry never knew his parents, and he has avoided connections to his past for more than half a century. Camille and Julie have lost their husband and father and their real selves. Julie has lost the smart, funny girl she used to be in the alienation and self-hatred that are byproducts of bullying. Camille has lost the sense of adventure and joy in living that were essential parts of who she was before she became paralyzed by fear. Finn’s preoccupation with recovering the remains of lost soldiers is intimately linked to the disappearance of his own father, a combat strategist and communications specialist who was declared MIA before Finn’s birth. But the book is also about healing and restoration and the power of love—romantic and familial.

I’ve been a Susan Wiggs fans since the days when she was a writer of historical romance, and some of my Wiggs keepers date from that period. But I think her recent books that are essentially women’s fiction with elements of historical fiction, romance, and mystery are among her finest work. I loved Map of the Heart. Wiggs made Bethany Bay, Delaware, and Sauveterre, the Palomar farm in Provence, real to me. Not only Henry, Julie, Camille and Finn but also other characters in both the twentieth and twenty-first century sections of the novel come alive in these pages. I was invested in all their stories from beginning to end, and I turned the final page satisfied emotionally and intellectually. If you like novels that show the past impinging on the present, that deliver a big, multilevel emotional punch, and that conclude with happy resolutions for three generations, I highly recommend this book.

Review - - Family Tree

Family Tree

By Susan Wiggs

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: August 7, 2016

 

Anastasia “Annie” Rush grew up in Switchback, Vermont, learning all about her family’s maple sugar business, Sugar Rush, and developing a passion for food as her grandmother taught her to cook. But Annie’s dreams were larger than the family business or her small-town home. She dreamed of having her own television cooking show and sharing her grandmother’s philosophy concerning one key ingredient with the world. For a time, she also dreamed of sharing her life with Fletcher Wyndham, the outsider who stole her heart, but life happened and Annie and Fletcher became each other’s memories.

Annie was still a college student when she met Martin Harlow, an ambitious, charismatic chef. When the two married, somehow Annie’s dream of hosting her TV show, The Key Ingredient, was realized with her husband as the star with an on-screen assistant whose white-bread beauty was not marred by the ethnic looks that characterized Annie. She became executive producer and the power behind the scenes. Still, Annie is happy with her life—in love with her husband, busy with their successful TV show, and thrilled to be pregnant with her first child. Then, in a matter of minutes, she loses everything. Running from a painful disillusionment, she is involved in a workplace accident that leaves her in a coma.

A year later, she awakens with huge holes in her memory. Her husband has divorced her and returned her to her family like an unsatisfactory product. Gradually, Annie recovers her memories and begins to rebuild her life surrounded by her family (her estranged parents and her brother and his family) and old friends, including Fletcher Wyndham. Finding her grandmother’s cookbook even reawakens old dreams. But just as her new life promises reunion with Fletcher and all the other things she once thought would make up her life, the tantalizing possibility of reclaiming her old life complicates her new life. Only Annie can decide which life she will claim as her own.

Nobody does the hybrid of women’s fiction and romance better than Susan Wiggs. In this new standalone, she gives readers the compelling story of one woman’s journey to discover who she is and who she wants to become and a sigh-worthy romance that reunites two lovers against all odds. Because Wiggs alternates between Then and Now sections, readers see Annie’s present illuminated by her past. This duality enriches both Annie’s personal journey and the romance between her and Fletcher.

Family Tree, as the title suggests, is a relationship novel in the best sense of that term. Wiggs’s deft touch with characterization keeps the reader invested not only in the relationship between Annie and Fletcher but also in Annie’s relationship with her parents, her grandmother, and her brother, in Fletcher’s relationship with his father and his son, and in the relationship between Annie’s parents. Life on a Vermont maple farm is rendered with dimensionality and careful detail that emphasizes the stark contrast between life in Switchback, Vermont, and in Los Angeles. I finished the novel feeling as if I knew by heart this place and these characters.

I have added this one to my Best of 2016 list, and I highly recommend it. If you are a fan of novels that make you weep, make you smile, and leave you filled with the belief that love in its many manifestations really can conquer seemingly insurmountable obstacles, I think you will love this story as much as I did.

~Janga 

Review - - Starlight on Willow Lake

Starlight on Willow Lake

By Susan Wiggs

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: August 25, 2015

Susan Wiggs focuses on another branch of the wealthy Bellamy family in the eleventh book of her Lakeshore Chronicles. The book opens as the three children of Alice and Trevor Bellamy gather in New Zealand to spread the ashes of their father on the mountain where he perished when he was caught in an avalanche while skiing. Their mother survived, but her injuries were severe. The woman who traveled the world and joined her husband in his athletic pursuits is now a paraplegic who rarely leaves the luxurious home on Willow Lake outside Avalon, New York, that her older son Mason has had outfitted for her needs.

Burdened with the knowledge of family secrets as a teenager, Mason Bellamy responded by preserving an emotional distance from both his parents. That distance colors his memories of his father and his relationship with his mother. A successful financier, Mason spends exorbitant sums of money to purchase the Willow Lake estate, install every convenience that will make his mother’s restricted life easier, and pay the salaries of a large staff to serve her, but he is uncomfortable spending time with her. When Adam, who has moved into an apartment over the boathouse in order to assume the major responsibility for Alice’s care, has to be away for several months of training in arson investigation at the same time that a long-awaited opportunity in Paris opens up for Ivy, their younger sister, Mason is forced to take a more direct role in his mother’s care.

Embittered and angry, Alice has driven away every home health care provider hired to care for her. Mason’s first task is to find someone who can deal with his difficult mother. He reluctantly remains at Willow Lake to interview applicants. The most promising of the group is Faith McCallum. Mason’s plan is to hire her, stay long enough to make sure she was the right choice, and return ASAP to his life in NYC.

A job that provides a decent salary and living quarters is just what Faith, a widow with two daughters, needs. Debt from her late husband’s medical expenses and the cost of her younger daughter’s care have stretched Faith’s resources so thin that she and the girls are at the point of becoming homeless. An unexpected crisis showcases Faith’s cool head as well as her medical skills and convinces Mason that she is the perfect caretaker for his mother. So Faith and the girls join the household. Faith’s blend of challenge and compassion and the honesty and liveliness of her daughters soon have Alice involved in life again. Grateful for the job, Faith tries to ignore the attraction that simmers between her and Mason. Not only is he way out of her class, but he also has a fiancée.

Mason had not counted on the chemistry and connection that he finds with Faith nor the appeal of seventeen-year-old Cara’s intelligence and toughness and eight-year-old Ruby’s charm and courage. These feelings are threatening Mason’s carefully constructed reserve and even reshaping his relationship with his mother. But Faith’s memories of a husband she loved and lost and her awareness of the social chasm that separates her from Mason make her wary. Can these two let go of their fears and accept that the love they were not looking for may offer all their hearts desire?

Wiggs delivers another Lakeshore Chronicles book peopled with engaging characters dealing with the unexpected turns their lives take. I especially enjoyed watching the relationship between Mason and Faith develop gradually. Faith is a wonderful heroine, committed to her profession, devoted to her daughters, and strong in significant ways while still human and vulnerable. I was a bit slower to embrace Mason because I have ODed on the emotionally distant hero, but his discovery that his adored father was deeply flawed provided a credible reason for the man Mason became. And I loved watching Faith and her girls melt his reserve.

The romance is central here, but family relationships are also important—and they are complex and compelling. Wiggs excels at reminding her readers that each character, even the minor ones, has a story, and she does so without distracting the reader from the central tale. Although this book is part of a long-running series and characters from earlier books make brief appearances, Starlight on Willow Lake works well as a standalone. If you like contemporary romance rich in contexts and centered on a relationship that is at least as much about the dreams and doubts and scars and struggles of the two people involved as about fire in the blood and the loins, I definitely recommend this book.

~Janga

Susan Wiggs Winner

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Starlight on Willow Lake by Susan Wiggs is:

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Today's Special - - Starlight on Willow Lake Excerpt Tour

#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs sweeps readers away to a sun-drenched summer on the shores of Willow Lake in a stunning tale of the delicate ties that bind a family together…and the secrets that tear them apart 

STARLIGHT ON WILLOW LAKE
By Susan Wiggs
Publisher: MIRA
Release Date: August 25, 2015

When caregiver Faith McCallum arrives at the enchanted lakeside estate of Avalon’s renowned Bellamy family, she’s intent on rebuilding her shattered life and giving her two daughters a chance at a better future. But she faces a formidable challenge in the form of her stubborn and difficult new employer, Alice Bellamy. While Faith proves a worthy match for her sharp-tongued client, she often finds herself at a loss for words in the presence of Mason Bellamy—Alice’s charismatic son, who clearly longs to escape the family mansion and return to his fast-paced, exciting life in Manhattan…and his beautiful, jet-setting fiancée. 

The last place Mason wants to be is a remote town in the Catskills, far from his life in the city, and Faith McCallum is supposed to be the key to his escape. Hiring the gentle-hearted yet strong-willed caregiver as a live-in nurse gives his mother companionship and Mason the freedom to return to his no-attachments routine. For Faith, it means stability for her daughters and a much-needed new home. When Faith makes a chilling discovery about Alice’s accident, Mason is forced to reconsider his desire to keep everyone, including his mother, at a distance. Now he finds himself wondering if the supercharged life he’s created for himself is what he truly wants…and whether exploring his past might lead to a new life—and lasting love—on the tranquil shores of Willow Lake.

Excerpt: Starlight on Willow Lake

Mason had spared no expense. In his position, there was no need to. For the past decade, he had run his own private equities-and-lending firm, and business was good. He had all the money in the world. But of course, wealth had its limits. He couldn’t buy his mother her mobility. He couldn’t buy a way to make her smile again.

He took a deep breath of the morning air. “It’s sweet,” he said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“The air here. It’s sweet.”

“I suppose it is.”

“The landscaping looks great. Are you happy with it?”

“Your cousin Greg sent a crew to take care of the mowing and gardening,” she said, nodding in the direction of a long swath of grass sloping down to the water’s edge. There was a dock and a timber-and-stone boathouse, home to kayaks, a catboat and a 1940s Chris-Craft. When not on duty at the fire station, Adam lived in the upstairs quarters.

A fringe of ancient willow trees dipped their budding branches into the placid, sunlit water. The word that came immediately to mind was unspoiled. Willow Lake was one of the prettiest lakes in a landscape full of pretty lakes. The green-clad hills, with a few puffy clouds riding on their shoulders, rose gently upward from the shore. On the north end of the lake was a grand old summer camp, a hundred years in the making—Camp Kioga.

At the south end was the town called Avalon, as picture-perfect as a storybook setting, with its whistle-stop train station, old-fashioned town square, stone-built Greek revival library and shady shoreline parks. Its outskirts were equally attractive—a mountain road leading to a ski resort, a ball field for the local bush league baseball team, white-steepled churches, their spires seeming to thrust through the new-leafed trees. The cliffs of the Shawangunks attracted climbers from all over the world. Somewhere not so far away, there was probably suburban blight—shotgun shacks and mobile homes, ramshackle farms and big-box stores. But he couldn’t see any of that from here. And more important, neither could his mother.

The place he’d acquired for her was on the western shore of the lake, so it caught the sunrise every morning, something his real-estate agent had pointed out when he had bought the property. The agent had babbled on about the attributes of the historic mansion, not knowing Mason was already sold on getting the place. He was looking for security for his mother, not for a return on investment.

“Why do they keep quitting?” he asked her, paging through the printouts of the candidates for the job of primary caregiver. “Is it the living quarters?”

“Have you seen the living quarters?”

He’d looked at pictures after the remodel was done. The living quarters, located in a private wing of the house, featured a suite of rooms with a view of the lake, new furnishings and luxurious fixtures. “Okay, good point. So?”

“I haven’t been conducting exit interviews. I’m sure Adam gave you an earful. Nobody wants to live with a miserable old woman who can barely change the channel on The Price Is Right.”

Oh, boy. “You’re not old,” he said. “Your parents would freak out if they heard you say that. And being miserable is optional. So is watching The Price Is Right.”

“Thank you, Sigmund Freud. I’ll remember that next time I’m lying in bed, pissing into a plastic tube—”

“Mom.”

“Oh, sorry. I don’t mean to trouble you with the reality of my body functions.”

Now he understood why they all quit.

*

“Where should I put your things, Mr. Bellamy?” asked the housekeeper.

Mason stood glaring out the window at an impossibly serene and beautiful view of Willow Lake. Although he’d arrived late the day before, his luggage had been delayed—some mix-up at an airport between here and New Zealand.

Now Mrs. Armentrout rolled the two large bags into the room. The suitcases wore tags marked Unattended Baggage.

He hadn’t seen the luggage since dashing to the airport in New Zealand after getting the call about his mother’s accident. Now he realized he didn’t need the bags at all, since they were packed with winter clothes.

“Right there is fine, thanks,” he said.

“Would you like some help unpacking?”

“Sure, when you can get to it.”

“I can do that right now.”

The housekeeper worked with brisk efficiency, hanging his bespoke suit in the antique armoire, carefully folding cashmere sweaters away in a cedar-lined drawer. She lifted a dress shirt out of the suitcase and put it on a wooden hanger, her hand moving appreciatively over the fabric.

Philomina Armentrout actually looked more like a supermodel than a housekeeper. A native of South Africa, she was tall and slender, with creamy café au lait skin, wearing chic black slacks and a white blouse, shining dark hair and subtle makeup. Only the closest of inspections would reveal the tiny scars where the jaw wires had been surgically anchored after her husband had assaulted her. Mason had committed himself and all his resources to staffing the household with the best personnel available, and Mrs. Armentrout was definitely the best. That wasn’t the only reason Mason had hired her, though. Broken and battered, she had needed a new start in life, and Mason was taking care of her immigration process. According to Adam, she ran the place like a high-end boutique hotel, supervising every aspect of the household.

His phone in the charging station on the desk murmured insistently, signaling another text message from Regina. She had not taken the news of his change of plans well. She’d peppered him with all the questions he’d already run through with his brother and sister: Why did he need to come here in person? Couldn’t a staffer take care of hiring the new caregiver? Couldn’t Adam or Ivy change their plans and step in?

No, they couldn’t. Both had commitments that couldn’t be broken—Adam’s training in arson investigation, Ivy’s art fellowship at the Institut de Paume. But Mason didn’t feel like getting into a big debate with Regina at the moment, and so he ignored the message.

Last night he’d slept like a corpse in the comfortable guest room. It was so damned quiet here, and the air was sweet and the jet lag had finally caught up with him.

“Is my mother up yet?” he asked.

***

Are you a water person?

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One randomly chosen person leaving a comment on today's post will receive a copy of Starlight on Willow Lake. (US/Canada only) Deadline for comments is Friday, August 14. 

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Excerpt tour for STARLIGHT ON WILLOW LAKE:

Monday, August 3rd: From the TBR Pile

Tuesday, August 4th: The Sassy Bookster

Wednesday, August 5th: Book Reviews & More by Kathy

Thursday, August 6th: Sara’s Organized Chaos

Friday, August 7th: Raven Haired Girl

Monday, August 10th: Mom in Love with Fiction

Tuesday, August 11th: The Romance Dish

Wednesday, August 12th: Written Love Reviews

Thursday, August 13th: Books and Spoons

Friday, August 14th: A Chick Who Reads

Monday, August 17th: Urban Girl Reader

Tuesday, August 18th: Snowdrop Dreams of Books

Wednesday, August 19th: FictionZeal

Thursday, August 20th: Palmer’s Page Turners

Friday, August 21st: The Bookish and The Romantic

 

Guest Review - - Candlelight Christmas

Candlelight Christmas

By Susan Wiggs

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: October 29, 2013

Sports marketing executive Darcy Fitzgerald is still recovering from the end of what was supposed to be happily-ever-after. When she married Huntley Collins, whom she had known forever, she was deeply in love with him, with his eight and ten-year-old kids, and with the idea of being a family; but her perfect husband cheated on her with his ex-wife, the children who loved Darcy turned into teens who hated her, and her HEA had a shelf life of five years. Darcy is still hurting, and while she hasn’t given up on the idea of a love that lasts, she’s not looking for the immediate future. She’s also determined to avoid involvement with any more single dads.  In fact, Darcy plans to remain childless.

Logan O’Donnell is dreading to see the summer end because it means his son Charlie will be returning to Oklahoma to live with his mother and step-father for the school year. It will be Thanksgiving before Logan sees Charlie again. Sometimes the irony of his having moved to Avalon so that he could be a daily part of his son’s life only to have his ex, Daisy Bellamy,  marry Air Force pilot Julian Gastineaux (Marrying Daisy Bellamy) and move away with Charlie gets to him. Logan was left with nothing to fill the empty months when Charlie was not in Avalon except sports and his insurance business that he finds increasingly boring despite its success. All Logan wanted was to be a family man. He still thinks about the sisters and brothers he’d like to give Charlie, but Logan’s romantic relationships seem to be strictly short-term.

Darcy and Logan meet when Darcy accompanies her friend India, Logan’s sister, to Camp Kioga for the closing ceremonies of the summer program run by Sonnet and Zach Alger. India’s twin sons, like Charlie, have been attending the camp, and India seizes the moment to introduce her single friend to her single brother. Neither Darcy nor Logan is interested in a relationship, but there is a definite attraction between them, one that intensifies when it becomes clear they share a sense of humor and a love for outdoor sports. Darcy even encourages Logan in his wild idea to buy a resort. But Logan avoids complicated women, and Darcy shouts “Complicated.” Darcy plans to stay far away from guys with kids, and it’s clear that Logan’s son is the center of his world. So they say goodbye, albeit with backward looks.

The Fitzgerald and the Collins families have spent holidays together since their children were small, but Darcy cannot face another holiday in the same room with her ex. Even the pleas of her older sister, who is married to her ex’s older brother, fail to change her mind. Instead Darcy accepts India’s invitation to spend Thanksgiving with the O’Donnell family in Paradise Cove, Florida, where she and Logan share some special moments, including kisses that leave them both wanting more. When India tells Logan that she’s invited Darcy to spend Christmas with the family who will gather at Saddle Mountain, the resort of which Logan has recently become controlling partner, he thinks it’s a grand idea.

Christmas at Saddle Mountain proves to be magical with snow and lights and a house filled with excited kids. Darcy finds herself more involved that she ever expected to be in all of Avalon’s Christmas happenings. Logan’s happiness at having Charlie with him again is multiplied by his joy in having his family join him in his new home. If Darcy and Logan can drop their defenses and learn to trust each other with all their vulnerabilities, such holidays just may become a family tradition.

Candlelight Christmas is the tenth book in Susan Wiggs’s Lakeshore Chronicles, and the third book that focuses on characters who were teenagers in the earlier books. I’ve been a fan of the series since the first book and a Susan Wiggs fan far longer, so, in the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I was predisposed to like this book before I read the first word. I expected a book that would expand the world of familiar characters, introduce some new ones whom I would find engaging, and offer a story rich in family dynamics and romance. Candlelight Christmas met all my expectations.

Fans of the series who watched Logan grow from a wild teenager rebelling against his controlling father into a young man determined to accept the responsibilities of fatherhood and who felt sorry for him (even if you belonged to team Julian) when his marriage to Daisy fell apart will be especially pleased to see Logan come into his own as the hero who finds his own HEA. Wiggs provides enough details of Logan’s past for readers who have not read the earlier books to understand the stages Logan has moved through to get where he is and to root for his happiness.

Darcy is also a likeable character, and from the beginning, it’s easy to see that she is perfect for Logan. Not only do they both understand what it means for the stable world they thought they had created to crumble, but they also share a love for sports that have an element of risk. Even more important, Darcy is the catalyst who reminds Logan of who he really is and gives him the courage to choose something he is passionate about for his life’s work, risks and all. And Logan provides the motivation Darcy needs to take emotional risks and claim the life she was meant to have.

But this book is not only a romance; it is also a book about families. One of the things I liked most is that this book humanizes Logan’s parents, especially his father who has been something of a bad dad in earlier books. In this one, readers see his mother and father as flawed human beings who make mistakes, as all parents do, but who love their son and their grandson. Logan interacts with his parents and his sisters and their husbands and children. The O’Donnells share history, traditions, jokes, and an unwavering love for one another. Readers see them as a family.

Wiggs also shows how divorce affects families, redefining who is and is not family. Darcy’s divorce created complications with her own family because they were so entangled with her ex’s family. She grieved the loss of her step-children long after she had recovered from her husband’s betrayal. Logan feels like an outsider when he takes Charlie to the Bellamy’s inn, a place where Logan had once been warmly welcomed as part of the family. Wiggs also shows the pain of parent and child separation and the tension between former spouses even in the case of divorce and remarriage where everyone involved loves the child and shares a commitment to his best interest. And all is not smooth sailing when Charlie realizes his dad and Darcy are interested in one another.

All of this is not to suggest that this tenth Lakeshore Chronicle fails as a Christmas book. It has all the holiday trappings and enough warm, fuzzy moments and thematic threads concerning love and giving to satisfy even rabid Christmas celebrants like me. For example, there is a poignant subplot involving two children for whom Logan assumes temporary responsibility. And for the true romantics, there is a wonderful scene where Darcy and Logan sneak out in a snowstorm to hang lights on an outside tree so that Santa will have a runway for landing.  I also liked seeing the family Thanksgiving gathering included.

In short, Candlelight Christmas succeeds as a holiday story and as a small-town contemporary romance. I thoroughly enjoyed this visit to Avalon, New York, and I recommend this book, and the series, to readers who like small-town settings with a complex tangle of extended family and friends.

Wiggs has never given a definitive answer as to how many books readers can expect in this series. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for at least one more. I want to see Max Bellamy happily settled. And Charlie, whom series regulars adored as an infant, is already ten. Maybe Wiggs will move on to third generation stories. After all, she did post that sketch on her blog that shows a woman reading Wheelchairs on Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicle #89. ;)

~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com

Guest Review - - Return to Willow Lake

Return to Willow Lake

By Susan Wiggs

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: August 28, 2012

Sonnet Romano has come home to Avalon for the wedding of her best friend and stepsister, Daisy Bellamy, and Julian Gastineaux. As happy as she is for Daisy and Julian and as exciting as the wedding and related festivities have been, Sonnet is left with a feeling of loss and restlessness. A post-wedding boat ride with Zach Alger, her other best friend, leads somewhere Sonnet never intended to go. Jell-O shots, champagne, starlight, and a kiss that shifts a lifetime of friendship end with a yes Sonnet never expected to say.

But her life is no longer in Avalon, and six months later, Sonnet is back in Manhattan where she is a director at UNESCO. Life is good. Her relationship with Orlando Rivera, the Cuban-American director of her father’s senatorial campaign, is turning serious. She’s just been chosen as a recipient of a Hartstone Fellowship that will make her director of a program to aid indigent children at home or abroad, a coup that will fulfill a dream and earn the approval of her distant, goal-oriented father, General Laurence Jeffries. That night with Zach was a mistake she’s trying to forget. Avalon, Willow Lake, and Zach Alger are her past. Orlando and the fellowship are her future.

But when Sonnet learns that her mother, Nina Romano Bellamy, is pregnant, she takes a long weekend to return again to the inn at Willow Lake. Nina was just a teenager when she gave birth to Sonnet, and, although the large, big-hearted Romano clan showered both Nina and Sonnet with love and emotional support, for most of Sonnet’s life, it was she and her mother, a tight unit who depended on one another. Part of Sonnet is thrilled with her mother’s news, but with twenty-seven-year-old Sonnet’s own biological clock ticking away and an unexpected jealousy that this younger sibling will have the two-parent family that she never knew, Sonnet’s reactions are mixed. Then, Zach breaks Nina’s confidence to tell Sonnet that her mother has breast cancer. Sonnet knows that, despite Nina’s objections, the Hartstone Fellowship must be declined. Her place is at Willow Lake while her mother goes through a pregnancy that is complicated by cancer treatment.

The summer that follows is one of heartbreak threatening and heart knowledge acquired, a time when Sonnet discovers some dreams are rooted in shallow soil and some people are not at all what they seem to be. It is the summer Sonnet finally grows up. She comes to terms with her past, redefines her future, and earns an HEA as satisfying and romantic as her friend Daisy’s.

Return to Willow Lake has the emotional punch, complex family dynamics, and old-fashioned love story with a modern edge that have made the Lakeshore Chronicles of Susan Wiggs so popular with readers. As with any long-running series, some stories are more appealing than others, but overall, the series has been remarkably consistent. One of the delights has been watching the characters who were young teens when the series began mature and become the heroes and heroines of their own stories. Wiggs did a superb job in RTWL of balancing threads from earlier novels with new plot threads. Seeing Sonnet accept her father and his limitations and develop a full appreciation of the life her mother and the extended Romano family have given her were as important to me as the romance. I also loved seeing Zach come into his own. Watching Nina and Greg go through another stage in their marriage was also rewarding, and Jezebel is a delightful character, one I’d love to see again.

The Lakeshore Chronicles addicts who have been waiting for this book since they turned the last page of Daisy’s story last year are going to love yet another visit to Willow Lake, but Wiggs includes enough back story for even a new reader to understand the relationships without difficulty. I recommend this book--particularly for readers who appreciate a hybrid tale that combines the mother-daughter focus often found in women’s fiction with a romance between two characters with their fair share of baggage.

~Janga
http://justjanga.blogspot.com