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

Mr. Gandy's Grand Tour

A washed-up, middle-aged British man sets off on a tour of Europe that changes him in unexpected, profound ways.

When Timothy Gandy's job as a graphic designer is made redundant, the 55-year-old Brit discovers that he's too old to find a new job and too young to retire. Taking stock, he realizes he's invisible in the shadow of his domineering wife--a woman involved with social and philanthropic causes, and to whom he's been married for 40 years. And he doesn't always see eye-to-eye with his adult children. Son Oliver is a successful barrister. He and his wife are highfalutin, materialistic intellectuals. Middle daughter Alice is single, a distant and reclusive librarian. However, good-natured Rosie, a schoolteacher, shares a bond with her father. She understands him. She and her conservationist, naturalist beau struggle to make ends meet, while happily raising their daughter together. 

The sting of unemployment followed by a shattering personal loss convinces Timothy to follow his long-repressed yearnings for travel. Despite staunch objections from his family--all except Rosie--he finally asserts himself. He sets off on a grand tour of Europe modeled in the style of those taken by young men of means in the late 18th century. Timothy leaves his Chichester, England, home and begins an exciting journey that takes him through France and Italy, where he makes unexpected new friends that change him and his outlook on life. 

Noted gardening guru Alan Titchmarsh (Bring Me Home) plants seeds of hope in another wholesome, richly entertaining story. Readers will be eager to accompany his sensitive, winning protagonist through an itinerary of many adventures.

Mr. Gandy's Grand Tour by Alan Titchmarsh

Hodder & Stoughton, $26.99 Hardcover,  9780340953075, 320  pages

Publication Date: April 24, 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 22, 2018), link HERE. 

The Story of Arthur Truluv

An 85-year-old childless widower, a misfit 18-year-old girl  and a never-married 83-year-old woman form a life-changing friendship.

In The Story of Arthur Truluv, Elizabeth Berg (The Dream Lover) focuses on contrasting characters whose lives share common threads of loneliness and isolation: Arthur Moses is an 85-year-old grieving the loss of his beloved wife, Nola Corrine. A retired parks groundskeeper and an amateur gardener, he rides a bus everyday to the cemetery and eats his brown bag lunch graveside with Nola. There, he takes comfort in cleverly conjuring visions of the dead in surrounding, underground graves--"Nola's neighbors"--and he imagines the lives they might have lived. The simple gesture of a hand wave brings Maddy Harris--an 18-year-old with a nose ring, who also finds graveyards comforting--into Arthur's life.

Maddy calls the dead "her people," as her mother died in a car crash two weeks after Maddy was born. The tragedy and its aftermath drove a wedge between her and her father, who, tormented by his own grief, emotionally rejected his daughter and ultimately shaped her into a loner. When forlorn Maddy meets compassionate Arthur, their shared affinity for the dead sparks an unlikely friendship. She nicknames him "Truluv" because he speaks with glowing devotion for his late wife. Gradually added to the mix is Lucille, Arthur's meddlesome, 83-year-old, never married next-door neighbor, who faces a shattering loss of her own.

Berg's vivid characters may be vastly different in age, worldview and temperament, but they express a universal need for love, acceptance, purpose and connection. Tender, colorful strokes of humor dot the landscape of this touching story that deepens with poignancy and profound insights into the perils and glories of the contemporary human condition.  

The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

Penguin-Random House, $26.00 Hardcover,  9781400069903, 240 pages

Publication Date: November 21, 2017

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 (November 24, 2017), link HERE

This Was Not the Plan

Charlie Goldwyn--a widowed, white-collar litigation attorney--narrates the novel, This Was Not the Plan by Cristina Alger. Unable to cope since the death of his wife, 33 year-old Charlie buries himself in work. This leaves the rearing of his five-year-old son, Caleb, to his "laid-back hippie of a sister," Zadie, who is a steadying force for Charlie and quirky Caleb, who likes to dress in girls' clothing. 

"There are things in life that are more important than work," one of the bosses tells Charlie, who is up for partner at the high-powered Manhattan law firm. When overworked and overtired Charlie is roped into attending an office cocktail party, he drinks too much and goes off on a loose-tongued tirade about his job and the back-breaking sacrifices he's made for the firm, only to have the incident captured on video by a competitive coworker. The video goes viral, and Charlie is fired—suddenly forced to navigate the world as a stay-at-home-dad and reconnect with his son, while fighting to get his job back. But is returning to the firm what's best for Charlie—and for Caleb?

As Charlie plots his next move, he struggles with grief and the new realities of his life, including his own parental and social inadequacies and the strained relationship he's endured with his own father. Alger (The Darlings) piles problems on her empathetic protagonist in a lively, entertaining way, while presenting a cast of appealing characters faced with the stresses and challenges of contemporary parenting. 

This Was Not the Plan by Cristina Alger
Touchstone, $26.00 Hardcover, 9781501103759, 240 pp
Publication Date: February 2, 2015
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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 (2/17/16), link HERE