When Sparks Fly

A passionate, feel-good small-town romance about old friends whose sudden attraction challenges what they thought they wanted out of life.

Over four books, romance author Jo McNally has treated readers to tender contemporary love stories set in the small fictional town of Rendezvous Falls in Upstate New York. Challenges of real life--and subsequent consequences--always play a part in her multi-generational stories set in locales such as the local vineyard (Slow Dancing at Sunrise), a B&B (Stealing Kisses in the Snow), the flower shop (Love Blooms) and via an apartment rental (Barefoot on a Starlit Night).

 

In the fifth book, When Sparks Fly, McNally focuses on Zoe Hartford, a 40-year-old, self-employed, ‘fix-it’ appliance and auto repairwoman whose confidence is down since a traumatic divorce. The hard-working single mother is determined to restore stability and normalcy to the life of her rebellious, 13-year-old daughter, Hazel. When Zoe starts to have romantic feelings for Mike--a lawyer, now a widower who’s been one of Zoe’s best friends since high school--complications ensue. Will their dear and cherished friendship be put at risk by sparking up a romance after all these years? And might the couple’s relationship drive a wedge in the mother-daughter bond?

 

The joys and tribulations of small-town life--and other love stories therein--offer a colorful backdrop to this passionate, down-to-earth romance where members of a meddling match-making book club offer wit and levity. A subplot involving Zoe’s house and place of business nicely binds up several plot threads. Readers who enjoy stories about the toil of true love will feel right at home in the comforts of this continuing series.

 

When Sparks Fly (A Rendezvous Falls Novel: Book Five) by Jo McNally 

HQN Books – Original Edition, $9.99 Mass Market Paperback, 416 pages, 9781335916389

Publication Date: August 9, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (August 12, 2022), link HERE

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead

The second entry in Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan series—another bumbling comedy of errors and a hilarious, fast-paced mystery upends the life of a struggling writer and single mother.

Elle Cosimano has crafted in heroine Finlay Donovan a flawed yet enormously lovable and sympathetic character. In the first book in the series, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, the exhausted single mother of two and struggling suspense novelist was mistaken for a contract killer when she publicly discussed the plot of her work-in-progress novel over lunch at a Panera Bread café. This launched Finlay into madcap mayhem that involved the Russian mafia.

In her second misadventure, Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead, Finlay is still struggling to raise her two young children, meet writing deadlines and juggle the romantic attentions of a handsome law student and a detective in Fairfax County, Va. Her life takes another unexpected detour when, by way of an online mothers' support group, Finlay accidentally learns that someone wants her cheating ex-husband--Steven Donovan, the father of her children--dead. With the help of her reliable nanny sidekick--accounting student Veronica Ruiz, aka Vero--Finlay devises a plan to save Steven's life and flush out who has it in for him. However, Finlay's blundering scheme backfires when she uses public Wi-Fi. She and her plan are outed, embroiling her, yet again, in escalating danger.

 

Cosimano's plucky heroine continues to shine in a fast-paced, suspenseful mystery with stellar comic timing and wit. Playful snark and revealing secrets make for a roller-coaster plot with so many absurdist twists and turns that readers will be left winded from the excitement--and much laughter.

 

Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead: The Finlay Donovan Series – Book Two by Elle Cosimano

Minotaur (MacMillan Publishers), $26.99 hardcover, 9781250242181, 368 pages

Publication Date: February 2, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

You Me Everything

An idyllic summer vacation to France becomes a turning point for a 33-year-old woman, her ex and their 10-year-old son.

Catherine Isaac is the pen name for British author Jane Costello (Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel), who chose a pseudonym for her American debut, You Me Everything. In Manchester, England, 22-year-old Jess is deep in labor. While facing the agony of childbirth with her mum at her side, Jess is furious that her boyfriend, Adam--a man whom Jess fell in love with in college, who is the baby's father--is markedly absent. By the time Jess cradles son William in her arms, Adam surfaces, reeking of stale booze and another woman's perfume. 

The timeline then leaps ahead 10 years. Jess, a teacher of creative writing at a local college, is a single mother. Adam--never wanting a child or to settle down--lives luxuriously, managing a beautiful hotel in the hills of Southwestern France. He is "not a neglectful father," Jess says. "He pays his maintenance on time, remembers William's birthday and Skypes when he says he will. But our son is no more than a small piece in the jigsaw of Adam's colorful life."

It is Jess's mother who insists that William needs to have a more substantial relationship with his father. Mother and son then make the long journey to Château de Roussignol, Adam's stomping ground. There she hopes free-spirited, fun-loving Adam and inquisitive, bright William will finally form a tighter bond. What ensues is a tender and reflective story that covers a span of five weeks.

This is a multi-layered, heartbreaking story of abiding love. Isaac's graceful, nuanced storytelling gains an unexpected depth and clarity readers are sure to find riveting. 

You Me Everything: A Novel by Catherine Isaac

Pamela Dorman/Viking, $26.00 Hardcover,  9780735224537, 368 pages

Publication Date: May 1, 2018

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE



NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (May 15, 2018), link HERE

The Lemon Orchard

Some losses we never get over. And when a parent loses a child, grief becomes all the more profound. In The Lemon Orchard, prolific author Luanne Rice explores this experience with creative compassion telling the story of Julia Hughes, a mother whose 16 year-old daughter, Jenny, dies in a car crash that also claims the life of Jenny's father and Julia's husband, a man whom she was in the process of divorcing.

Five years after the deaths, Julia, a professor of cultural anthropology at Yale University, is still unable to shake the loss. But when a beloved aunt and uncle ask her to house-sit for their Malibu property and lemon orchard, Julia packs up with her beloved dog and heads west. 

The natural, sensory beauty of the Santa Monica Mountains serves to intensify Julia's memories of Jenny and stir her presence. And when Roberto, the manager of the lemon orchard takes an interest in Julia--and vice-versa--the two, from different cultures, connect and bond through their shared pain of losing daughters. In Roberto's case, his daughter was lost and never found during their illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States. Julia and Roberto begin to fall in love, which inspires a renewed sense of purpose in Julia as she becomes determined to find answers about Roberto's daughter.

Alternating points of view lend intimacy to the romantic elements and suspense of the narrative. Rice has written a tender portrait of grief and loss that ultimately becomes a gateway to hope and healing, love and reinvention.

The Lemon Orchard by Luanne Rice

Pamela Dorman Books,  $27.95, Hardcover, 9780670025275 , 304 pp

Publication Date: July 2, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (7/12/13), click HERE

Vanity Fare: A novel of lattes, literature, and love

Molly Hagan is a struggling, forty-year-old single mother who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She suffers the sting of a husband who left her for a younger woman; a traumatized six-year old son who asks too many questions and is begging for an exotic pet; a mother who's financial future has gone belly-up and now has nowhere to live; and well-meaning friends and a shrink who pressure Molly to make changes in her life. Molly's troubles grow even deeper when she learns that she's penniless and can't even pay the rent.

When an old friend offers Molly a copyrighting job for a new bakery, Molly jumps at the chance for employment. The venue is located near the New York Public Library and the owner wants to make the bakery "a destination point, just like the library." Inspired by the challenge, Molly comes up with a "literary-food-is-delicious" schematic for what she envisions will become, "Vanity Fare." In the midst of pulling together her presentation, Molly suddenly finds herself being wooed by a sexy British pastry chef with an "upper-crust, devil-may-care Hugh Grant accent" and his aloof business partner, who becomes more attractive as he forms a bond with Molly's son.

Each chapter commences with blurbs that cleverly pair a syrupy literary reference/pun with a bakery offering such as "Much Ado about Muffins," "A Room of One's Scone" and "Catcher in the Rye Bread." Author Megan Caldwell has whipped up a delicious, well-plotted romance where her smart, self-deprecating heroine conquers real-world issues with good humor.

Vanity Fare: A novel of lattes, literature, and love  by Megan Caldwell

William Morrow, $14.99, Trade paper, 9780062188366,  416 pp

Publication Date: December 26, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (1/9/13), click HERE.