The magic of Christmas—and a second shot at romance—is in the air in Shelter Springs this holiday season…
Amanda Taylor isn’t a fan of Christmas, but as the owner of a local soap shop, ignoring the holiday season isn’t an option. To forget the pain of Christmases past, Amanda focuses on making the season bright for her customers at the Shelter Springs Holiday Giving Market. But when her beloved grandmother, Birdie, starts dating the dashing new resident of the Shelter Inn retirement community, Amanda smells trouble. Fortunately, Rafe Arredondo, the grandson of Birdie’s charming suitor, is equally dubious of the match. Unfortunately, he's just as fiery as his grandfather—and Amanda has zero interest in getting burned.
As a single father, paramedic and assistant fire chief, Rafe has more than enough on his plate. Sure, he and Amanda share a common goal in keeping their grandparents apart. Still, that doesn’t mean he should allow himself to feel as drawn to her as he does. Even if she is great with his young son. Even if she does help the burden of his own painful past feel a little lighter… But when their paths keep crossing at the holiday market, it starts to feel like fate, prompting them both to wonder if taking a chance on love might gift them everything they’ve been wishing for.

My Review:

This first book in my personal 2024 Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon – and the second book in the author’s Shelter Springs series of holiday romances – combines two songs that I never expected to find in the same place.

The first one that hit me was Tom Lehrer’s version of “A Christmas Carol”, the one that kind of hits me every year as we get close to Black Friday, as we are. Lehrer’s comical/satirical “Carol” is the one that includes the line, “Angels we have heard on high, tell us to go out and –buy!” As that is EXACTLY what the Shelter Springs Annual Holiday Giving Market is trying to do – while trying to make the shoppers feel virtuous about spending LOTS as the profits from the Market are going to one or more local good causes – which makes it all that much easier for the folks who come from literally miles around to get the holiday presents they are looking for for their friends and loved ones.

But the other song, that wraps around this story like tinsel around a Christmas tree, is Fleetwood Mac’s classic, “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)” because that’s a lesson, both in the looking forward and in its reminder that “yesterday’s gone” that both market organizer Amanda Taylor and Assistant Fire Chief Rafe Arredondo need to learn.

Which they find themselves coming around to, slowly but not always surely, when their widowed grandparents, his abuelo Paolo and her grandmother Birdie, begin dating each other. At ages 76 and 80 respectively. Because life’s too short to take a pass on happiness when it comes your way – no matter your age.

No matter how envious it might make your adult grandchild, either.

But in the beginning of this holiday romance, Amanda and Rafe are both a bit too preoccupied with the yesterday that’s gone. Both are survivors of relationships with addicts, his wife, her father and her boyfriend.

The difference is that the most damage that Caitlin Arredondo, in her addiction and her resulting death, did was to their little boy Isaac. As well as to Rafe’s willingness to pursue a relationship with any woman he might be tempted to “fix” or “save” the way he was with Caitlin. He sees shadows in Amanda’s eyes that remind him too much of his late wife – never once thinking that the person those shadows really remind him of is the one he sees in the mirror.

Amanda knows that people see shadows around her, because her father’s addiction did considerably more damage to Shelter Springs than just to her and her mother. On his final bender, he killed four people along with himself, and there are entirely too many people in town who STILL look at Amanda and see her father. As though a teenage girl could have done anything to stop a full-grown man who was determined to drive while WAY over the legal limit.

Her baggage makes his baggage gunshy. Rafe’s mother is one of many people in town who still give Amanda the cold shoulder more than ten years after her father’s last drunken spree, because one of the people her dad killed that night was Rafe’s cousin Alex.

But Rafe and Amanda are now neighbors on Hummingbird Lane, and Rafe’s little boy has already decided that Amanda is his new best friend. Isaac was already planning to ask Santa to give him a new mommy, and he’s decided that Amanda is perfect for the role.

And he’s not wrong. She’s already fallen hard for the little boy, and in spite of herself is well down that same path for his father.

The question is whether either of the adults can get past their matched set of emotional baggage to give each other AND little Isaac the Christmas present they all want this Christmas. Even if it won’t exactly fit under the tree.

Escape Rating A-: The December Market wasn’t nearly as light and fluffy as I was expecting in a holiday romance – and it was all the better for tackling a couple of very serious topics, well, seriously, as well as having more than enough light and sparkle to kick off the holiday season’s readings.

The elephant that precedes Amanda into entirely too many rooms in Shelter Springs is her father’s last and final, monstrous and criminal, act. His rage-fuelled drunk driving was all the more tragic because it was entirely preventable. He didn’t HAVE to drive drunk on that or any other night.

But it was not preventable by then-teenaged Amanda. And most of the time she knows it – even if she does occasionally still second guess herself and let a smidgeon of guilt trip in. It doesn’t help at all that she chose to brazen out life in Shelter Springs, and that there are clearly some people in town who see her father’s shadow every time they see her.

It seems as if all of her many, many good deeds – and they are indeed many – and her inability to say “no” to any volunteer commitment, comes out of that smidgeon of guilt, or out of a desire to atone for her father’s deeds in some way – even though her childhood was certainly one of his victims. Being the adult child of an alcoholic has left a deep mark on her life that she may never completely recover from.

Keeping herself overly busy all of the time rather than face her own demons is one way of dealing with that damage.

But part of that damage is that she assumes her attraction to Rafe Arredondo can’t possibly be reciprocated – no matter how often she finds him glancing her way – because his is one of the families that her father nearly destroyed. Rafe tells himself he shouldn’t act on his attraction to Amanda because he doesn’t want to get his heart – and more importantly his son’s heart – tangled up in fixing someone who might not want to be fixed.

Of course, they’ve both read each other very, very wrong. They can’t, and shouldn’t, attempt to fix each other. But they can help each other be strong in the broken places. Figuring that out provides their matchmaking grandparents a chance to say “I told you so” even as it gives Isaac the Christmas present he asked Santa for.

As I said at the top, this wasn’t quite as light and fluffy as I was expecting, although the romance between the grandparents did add plenty of sweetness . It’s always lovely to see a story that shows it’s never too late to fall in love and grab a second chance at happiness.

But the part of the story that really got me were Amanda’s and Rafe’s two-step forwards, one-step back efforts to deal with surviving a family member’s addiction – because that’s a hard road that doesn’t get acknowledged often in fiction. It was terrific, in the end, that they both reached towards a bright future together instead of trying to change, control or simply remain mired in a yesterday that’s gone. Like the song.

Please don’t come home for Christmas…
Julie Parker’s kids are her greatest gift. Still, she’s not exactly heartbroken when they ask to skip a big Christmas. Her son, Nick, is taking a belated honeymoon with his bride, Blair, while her daughter, Dana, will purge every reminder of the guy who dumped her. Again. Julie feels practically giddy for one-on-one holiday time with Heath, the (much) younger man she’s secretly dating.
But her plans go from cozy to chaotic when Nick and Dana plead for Christmas at the family cabin in memory of their late father, Julie’s ex. She can’t refuse, even though she dreads their reactions to her new man when they realize she’s been hiding him for months.
As the guest list grows in surprising ways, from Blair’s estranged mom to Heath’s precocious children, Julie’s secret is one of many to be unwrapped. Over this delightfully complicated and very funny Christmas, she’ll discover that more really is merrier, and that a big, happy family can become bigger and happier, if they let go of old hurts and open their hearts to love.

My Review:

That phrase is often said ironically, with a bit of a smirk instead of a smile, even an eye roll – as if somehow it’s a contradiction in terms like ‘jumbo shrimp’. When someone says “One big happy family” there’s usually a bit of a caveat to the ‘happy’ part. That something – or perhaps a whole lot of somethings or even someones – aren’t nearly as happy as things appear on the surface.

If they’re even bothering to pretend, that is.

But the Parker family is, at least, generally happy with each other – even if that’s leavened with just a bit of sadness this particular holiday as it’s their first without one of the family’s integral members. Julie Parker may have gotten over her marriage and her divorce from Eldon years ago, but he remained her friend and co-parent if not her spouse, and their adult children, Nick and Dana, miss him a LOT this first Christmas without him. The family holiday traditions just aren’t the same without him, because Eldon was really big on Christmas and he was at the center of a lot of those traditions.

Even if Julie was the person who put in the work to make them all happen. Which is the story of both her marriage AND her life. Julie gets things done, and isn’t good at relying on anyone else in the doing. The family Christmas traditions were a LOT of work – work that ALL fell on Julie’s strong but slightly tired shoulders.

She’s REALLY looking forward to this Christmas, a holiday where her big, generally happy, family is scattering to the four winds. She’s planning on two weeks of bliss and peace – not necessarily in that order – in the coziness of her own house WITH the boyfriend that she hasn’t told her kids about yet.

The only reason Julie has been keeping Heath a secret is that she’s much too worried about her family’s judgment of their relationship. Her kids know she’s dated in the decade plus since her divorce, and they’re fine with that. But she hasn’t let those relationships become serious enough to warrant the boyfriend meeting the family.

Heath is different. On paper, they match up well. Both divorced, both with two children, both owners of successful businesses, both strong and independent and capable. Heath’s a catch, and there’s no catch to the relationship, except for one thing that Julie can’t get out of her head. Heath is 42, and Julie is 54. There’s a lot of living between those twelve years, they are at different places in their lives, and people will judge them – because that’s what people do.

It may be a bigger problem in Julie’s mind than it is in the world at large or certainly among her family – but it is a real problem or at least it certainly can be.

Julie’s not sure their relationship is ready – or more to the point, that she is ready – to make Heath a part of her one big happy family. She’s happy to be able to put that off until after the holidays – possibly indefinitely.

Which is the point where all those plans refuse to survive first contact with the rest of that family, as Christmas turns into one last almighty grab at all their holiday traditions, all at once, with extra added family and a whole entire herd of drama llamas in tow.

Heath turns out to be more than willing to roll with all the punches. The question is whether Julie is, too.

Escape Rating B+: Julie’s issues over this family holiday are far, far, far from the only ones that rear their heads this holiday – but they are the ones that tugged at my heartstrings the most because they are oh so familiar and Julie is right, society will judge her relationship with a younger man. Some will judge harshly and some will say, “You go, girl!” but there will be judgment either way. And they are at different places in their lives and always will be – but that’s true of any couple with an age gap no matter which direction it goes – even if society usually glosses over those differences when the age gap is in the ‘expected’ direction.

But Julie and Heath’s issues together, along with Julie’s need to be in control and in charge at all times and not need anyone else, are not the only snow-covered hill to climb this holiday season. Every single member of this extended family has brought their very own, personal, drama llama to this Christmas feast.

The family isn’t entirely happy – as no family ever is all of the time – but there are a lot of them and the result is a lot of family dramas in a house with such wonderfully wonky acoustics that everyone can hear everything that happens everywhere outside of a closed door, even in a house big enough for SIX bedrooms and all the communal spaces that six bedrooms full of people might possibly need.

So it’s Julie and Heath, her son Nick, Nick’s wife Blair, the uncle who actually raised Blair AND her sourpuss of an estranged mother who didn’t – as well as Nick’s secret plans to NOT take over the family business after all. Julie’s daughter Dana and the man who keeps breaking her heart, over and over again – who is also Julie’s employee. Heath’s children, Madeline and Wyatt,who are ten and eight and no problem at all, but their mother, Heath’s ex Tiffany, got dumped for Christmas so Julie invites her, too. That’s not even everyone but it’s a bit past enough even before Julie ends up in the hospital after an accident.

All that’s missing is the partridge in the pear tree!

I love a good age gap romance – particularly when the woman is the older half of that relationship – when it’s done right. Which it very much is in One Big Happy Family. Howsomever, as an only child myself, the sheer number of family members and the craziness each of them brought to the holiday table – simultaneously – was the stuff of which nightmares are made. I found plenty to empathize with in most of their relationships – but I also found myself wishing there was one less of them – although I recognize that’s a ‘me’ thing and may not be a ‘you’ thing and your reading mileage may definitely vary.

All in all, if you’re looking for a happy ever after portrait of a chaotic family holiday with a family that loves each other completely and is going to stick together no matter what and get through this mess, One Big Happy Family does turn out to be a charming holiday portrait of, in the end, really, truly, one big happy family.

"The perfect summer novel—sharp, smart and so much fun!" —Viola Shipman, USA TODAY bestselling author, on The Island Villa
Cecilia Lapthorne always vowed she’d never go back to Dune Cottage. So no one is more surprised than Cecilia to find herself escaping her own seventieth birthday party to return to the remote but beautiful cottage on Cape Cod—a place filled with memories. Some are good—especially memories of the early days with her husband, volatile artist Cameron, before his fame eclipsed their marriage. But then there are the memories she has revealed to no one. Especially not her daughter, Kristen, who hero-worshipped her father.
For aspiring artist Lily, Dune Cottage has been a refuge, albeit an illicit one. After dropping out of medical school, she’s cleaning houses on the Cape to get by, guilt-ridden for disappointing her parents. Unoccupied for years, the cottage seemed the perfect place to hide away and lick her wounds—until Cecilia unexpectedly arrives. Despite an awkward beginning, Lily accepts Cecilia’s invitation to stay on as her guest, and a flicker of kinship ignites.
Then Cecilia’s grandson, Todd—and Lily’s unrequited crush—shows up, sending a shock wave through their unlikely friendship. Will it inspire Lily to find the courage to live the life she wants? Can Cecilia finally let go of the past to find a new future? Because as surely as the tide erases past footprints, this summer is offering both Cecilia and Lily the chance to swap old dreams for new…

My Review:

There’s a saying about the best things to give children are “roots and wings”. Roots to ground them, and wings to fly free. The Summer Swap is a story about, not just those roots and those wings, but particularly about the way that family expectations can add so much ballast that those wings can’t lift their load – no matter how much they yearn to fly.

The story begins with Lily, who has literally fled her parents’ well-meaning but wrong-headed expectations. Her parents worked hard and sacrificed a lot to make their two middle-class but not highly compensated jobs stretch – with grants and scholarships – to get Lily into an elite private school, college and then medical school.

They wanted her life to be richly rewarded and financially secure and put every penny and every effort into making it happen. That her rich and snooty classmates saw Lily as a charity case and treated her accordingly was something Lily stuffed down deep inside – just as she buried her dreams of becoming an artist in favor of pursuing the practical medical degree her parents had scrimped and saved for – and seemed to have their hearts set on.

Until it broke her, and she dropped out of med school. At which point her parents broke her again and kept on doing it, smothering her with their anxiety and their concern and trying to find ways to fix her so that she could go back to school – which was the last thing she wanted.

Her parents meant well, and they did their best to do well. But their dreams weren’t her dreams and she couldn’t deny herself a minute longer so she left. When we meet her she’s cleaning expensive but empty bungalows on Cape Cod, giving herself a bit of mental space so she can figure out what she wants to do with her OWN life while finding a way to manage those heavy parental expectations.

While squatting in an empty bungalow because it’s tourist season and there’s no place around that she can afford to live in on the trendy, touristy, expensive Cape.

Which is where Cecilia Lapthorne comes in. Literally.

Cecilia, seventy-five years old and the recent widow of a larger-than-life artist, has let herself be effaced by the expectations of being the “great man’s” helpmeet while he wowed the masses and kept his name in the limelight. Now that he’s gone, her daughter’s expectations that she continue to serve her artist dad’s memory and legacy for the rest of her life are smothering her.

So she too runs away – to the “cottage” on Cape Cod where she and her late husband had some of their happiest – and one of the awfullest – times of their lives. Because she needs that same bit of mental space that Lily does – to figure out what she wants to do with the rest of HER OWN life.

Which is the point where Lily and Cecilia run into each other. They can give each other something that few seem to have given either of them – time and space to think, and an open mind and a listening ear to help them each think through the life ahead of them as well as the trials and errors behind them.

And in that open space, they are able to capture the dreams they left behind and move forward into brighter futures – no matter how many years they each might have ahead.

Escape Rating A-: I picked this up because I absolutely fell in love with The Summer Seekers and was looking for the same kind of multi-threaded, multi-generational story about women at different milestones in their lives and the ways that they navigate the ties that bind and the ties that strangle – whether they are related to each other or not.

There are three women tangled together in this story, just as there were in The Summer Seekers. Cecilia, her middle-aged daughter Kristen, and 20something Lily. Cecilia and Kristen’s relationship is strained – frankly most of their relationships are strained for interconnected reasons – and Lily’s relationship with her parents is fraught as well.

What makes the interconnectedness work is that the strain in all of the relationships is wrapped around the same issue – each of them is protecting someone else by keeping secrets that probably should have seen the light of day years ago but haven’t for reasons that are realistically human.

And are also wrapped up in the female condition – that if you are female those around you (including, unfortunately, other women) often believe that you don’t know your own mind or haven’t thought things through or are being overly emotional. Something that’s especially true for Lily – her parents are sure that she’s too young to know her own mind and they only want what’s best for her. But equally true for Cecilia, who is seventy-five and recently widowed. Her daughter Kristen is just as sure that it’s her mother’s grief talking and she really isn’t in a position to make big decisions about her own life and that it will all look better later and that Kristen is just being protective and really knows best. When in fact Kristen is actually trying to manage her own grief over her father’s death by managing her mother – so of course it’s not working AT ALL for either of them.

Then again, Kristen is one of those people who ALWAYS knows best and is constantly managing everyone around her to make sure that her ‘best’ decisions are the ones that get implemented – never realizing that it often happens because it’s less stress for others to let her handle things rather than get bulldozed out of the way. Which explains at lot about the strain in all of the rest of Kristen’s relationships as well.

This particular triptych, similar to the triad relationship in The Summer Seekers, (I REALLY loved that book!), is something that this author is particularly adept at. (It worked a bit less well in The Book Club Hotel with four instead of three and YMMV)

All three women have similar issues, in that they need to stop trying to manage other people’s emotions, responses and expectations and set boundaries on their own – particularly with each other in the case of Cecilia and Kristen.

I did figure out Cecilia’s big secret fairly early on – but there was still an impact in seeing it revealed to the others and the way in which it was revealed. At the same time I was never quite sure exactly what the stumbling block was in Lily’s romance but was happy to see her happy all the same. And I was thrilled to see Cecilia get her own second-time-around HEA because she’d earned it, deserved it and was utterly entitled to it. I left the story still not sure how to characterize Kristen’s progress – but on the other hand, I’m not sure she is yet either.

If you enjoy stories like this, stories where women are at the center of all the action as well as all the emotions, where a romance may occur but isn’t remotely the entirety of the point, or simply like spending time with women who you’d love to have coffee with after, or simply books where you can feel the summer breeze wafting by as you read, The Summer Swap is just the ticket. And if one summer book is not enough, don’t forget to pick up this author’s other terrific ‘beach reads’ The Summer Seekers AND Beach House Summer to extend the breeze of your summer reading vibe!

This Christmas, USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan returns with another heartfelt exploration of change, the power of books to heal, and the enduring strength of female friendship. Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Jennifer Weiner.
With its historic charm and picture-perfect library, the Maple Sugar Inn is considered the winter destination. As the holidays approach, the inn is fully booked with guests looking for their dream vacation. But widowed far too young, and exhausted from juggling the hotel with being a dedicated single mom, Hattie Coleman dreams only of making it through the festive season.
But when Erica, Claudia and Anna—lifelong friends who seem to have it all—check in for a girlfriends’ book club holiday, it changes everything. Their close friendship and shared love of books have carried them through life's ups and downs. But Hattie can see they're also packing some major emotional baggage, and nothing prepares her for how deeply her own story is about to become entwined in theirs. In the span of a week over the most enchanting time of the year, can these four women come together to improve each other’s lives and make this the start of a whole new chapter?

My Review:

This is the story of how the Hotel Book Club transformed the Maple Sugar Inn into The Book Club Hotel – with a little bit of help from the spirit of Christmas. It’s also the story of four women living the old saying that goes, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

The members of the Hotel Book Club, former college roommates Ericka, Anna and Claudia, have met up every year since those college days at some hotel or another to catch up with each other, sightsee a bit, drink wine and talk about books. Not necessarily in that order.

As the story begins they are all just one side or the other of 40. Which is turning out to be one hell of a milestone birthday for each of them – even if they are having a difficult time admitting that to themselves – let alone each other.

There’s that saying about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence? They’re all feeling a bit of that because they went very different directions after college, which was not exactly a surprise as they were not exactly peas in a pod when they met.

Anna and Claudia both envy Ericka for her high-powered and highly-successful career and the lifestyle it affords her. Ericka and Claudia both see Anna’s happy marriage and picture-perfect family as a touchstone, proof that some relationships do work and some marriages are successful and some families are perfect – even if that hasn’t been the experience for either of them in their birth families or their own history. While Ericka and Anna both have a touch of that same envy over Claudia’s passion for and expertise in being a chef.

And all of those things are true, but, under the surface each situation is nowhere near as perfect as it seems from the outside. Anna is beset by empty-nest syndrome as her ‘job’ as the ever-supportive mother to twins Meg and Daniel is moving to a new and dreaded phase as those twins get ready to leave for college.

Claudia’s 10-year relationship with John has just ended, and she’s just lost a job that burned her out so badly she’s thinking seriously about re-inventing herself as something, anything, to get out of soulless kitchens run by abusive dictators that do not respect her skills AND leave her no time for a personal life.

While Ericka is waffling on the first steps of the road not taken. Or rather, the road her father took minutes after she was born, leaving her and her mother behind to fend for themselves while he ran about as far away as he could get. An event that sent her life into an utter inability to depend on anyone else for anything ever – with Anna and Claudia seeming to be the only exceptions.

When the friends gather at the Maple Sugar Inn that early December, they enter what seems like a picture perfect place to spend a week putting each other back together – even if none of them can admit that’s a big portion of what they are there for.

Just as they arrive, that picture-perfect picture melts down. The innkeeper Hattie is having a crisis of her own. Multiple crises, in fact, as both her head housekeeper and her five-star chef have quit in the midst of tantrums worthy of a two-year old while the inn is full to the rafters and there seems to be no help in sight.

But there is. And in the course of helping Hattie set the inn on the course she finally has the spoons to create for herself, Anna, Claudia and Ericka each find the fork in their own roads – and reach out to take it.

Escape Rating B+: I picked this up for two reasons, and I’m not sure which is first or second. The whole concept of a vacation just to read and spend time with lifelong friends and read, (did I mention read?) and relax and oh, yes, read – sounds a bit like heaven. And the setting of The Book Club Hotel seemed particularly idyllic, including a brief trip to a ‘Winter Wonderland’ without having to stick around for the next several months of freezing temperatures, gray snow and mud. (Been there, done that, the t-shirts are all long-sleeved and insulated.)

The Stacking the Shelves stack that included this book garnered a whole lot of comments about just how wonderful this particular vacation sounded, so I’m clearly not alone in thinking it would be lovely.

That other reason for picking up The Book Club Hotel is that I really enjoyed this author’s The Summer Seekers a couple of years ago, and was hoping for something similar.

In spite of the wildly different settings, that particular wish was just a bit too on the nose. The characters read a bit too similarly particularly Ericka and Anna standing in for emotionally distant Kathleen and helicopter worrywart mother Liza.

The story follows a familiar outline. Four women, each at their own personal crossroads, come together accidentally and on purpose and forge or re-forge the bonds between them while figuring out which way to turn at that crossroad with a little help from their old and new friends.

It’s a familiar formula because it works – and it certainly does in The Book Club Hotel. And that’s down to the four protagonists, Ericka, Anna, Claudia and Hattie. It helps a lot that not only are they all individually charming, each in their own ways, but they also represent different but very real dilemmas. Readers may not identify with all of them, but it would be difficult not to resonate with one or two. (Personally, I was on Team Ericka and Team Claudia but your reading mileage may take you down the other fork in the road.)

What really makes it all work is that each of these women does find a happily ever after, but it’s not the SAME happy ever after – and it shouldn’t be. I particularly liked that not all of those HEAs were wrapped around relationships and children. They each needed to work on themselves, and happiness followed from that work.

I have to confess that, in spite of my deep, abiding love for the concept of an actual Book Club Hotel, the story in said hotel didn’t pull at my heartstrings quite as hard as The Summer Seekers but a good reading time was absolutely still had by this reader.

If you like women’s fiction/relationship fiction, I’m confident that you will, too.

New York Times bestselling author Candace Camp invites you back to Stonecliffe, where an unwelcome reunion between a lady and a rogue calls up old feelings…and new dangers.
When the love of her life left without any explanation, Annabeth Winfield moved on despairingly, knowing she’d never have a love as thrilling as her first ever again. Sloane Rutherford was roguish and daring, but as Annabeth grew up, she realized that their reckless romance was just a passing adventure, never meant for stability. Twelve years later, Annabeth is engaged to someone new, ready to start her life with a dependable man.
That’s when Sloane returns. And he brings with him a serious warning: Annabeth is in trouble.
After spending the past dozen years working as a spy, Sloane thought he’d left espionage behind him. But now a dangerous blackmailer is after Annabeth. Sloane offers to hide his former lover at Stonecliffe, the Rutherford estate, but stubborn Annabeth demands to be part of the investigation. As the two embark on a dangerous and exciting journey, memories of their past romance resurface. Sloane and Annabeth aren’t the wide-eyed children they used to be, but knowing they’re wrong for each other makes a nostalgic affair seem very right…
A Stonecliffe Novel
Book 1: An Affair at StonecliffeBook 2: A Rogue at Stonecliffe

My Review:

Fictionally speaking, the Napoleonic Wars are a gift that just keeps on giving. And taking, as happens in this second book in the Stonecliffe series, after last year’s An Affair at Stonecliffe. (Which I have not read – yet – but am now looking forward to!)

The Napoleonic Wars are long over when that rogue of the title returns home to Stonecliffe, but that is not when this story begins. It began twelve years earlier, in 1810, when the war within the war known as the Peninsular War was still going hot, and the cold and chill war of spies and smugglers was complicating progress on both sides of the Channel.

Sloane Rutherford and Annabeth Winfield were young, in love, and expecting to marry as soon as Anna attained her majority at 21. As the children of somewhat spendthrift second sons of the aristocracy, they’ve been raised on the fringes of the ton without ever being truly part of it. They can marry for love – and that’s exactly what they intend to do.

At least until the seemingly endless war interferes with their hopes and dreams, in the person of Britain’s spymaster, Asquith. Asquith needs someone to pose as a disaffected spy and smuggler, and has decided that Sloane is the perfect man for a job that the younger man has no desire to do.

But Asquith has leverage. Not against Sloane himself, but against Anna’s beloved father, who has turned traitorous spy because someone in France has leverage on him. Sloane is faced with an impossible choice, whether to give up Anna, let everything think he has turned his back on his own country, and steal back the incriminating documents that keep her father in thrall, or let Asquith expose her father’s treachery and let the ensuing scandal fall on Anna and her family.

Sloane is damned if he does – literally – and equally damned if he doesn’t. So he does, because his choice is always going to be action over inaction. He leaves Anna in the painful lurch, and pretends to be everything that the ton ends up believing, that he’s a rogue, a smuggler, and a spy.

Even after the wars are over, and Sloane is back in England running the shipping empire that was his well-earned pay for a deadly and dangerous game, he and Anna stay far, far away from each other.

Until that incriminating paper that was once held over her father’s head puts Anna’s life in danger. So Sloane does what he always does – he acts. He’s the only one who takes the danger seriously enough to protect Anna at any and all costs – especially to his own heart.

Escape Rating B: The story in A Rogue at Stonecliffe reads like a combination of the chickens coming home to roost and an old truism about it not being the original crime that gets someone in trouble nearly half so much as it’s the coverup that does them in.

Mixed with a second chance at love story whose tension isn’t “will they, won’t they” because they already did, or even “should they or shouldn’t they”, because it’s obvious early on that they should, but much more about whether they can manage to get past all the damage that they’ve already done to each other.

Or more to the point, all the damage that Sloane has already done to Anna. Because he seriously effed up by taking solely unto himself a whole heaping helping of decisions that should rightfully have been shared. And that’s something they’re going to have to work on together in order to have any kind of future.

And it’s not easy to do that when bullets are flying and people are trying to kill one or both of them and there’s a dangerous secret at the bottom of the dirty barrel that neither of them knows the full depths of until it’s nearly too late.

There’s more than a bit of romantic suspense in this, as Sloane and Anna are searching for a secret that once damned her father and has the capacity to take the rest of the family down with him now that he’s dead. All the while, Sloane is trying to keep both of them a few steps ahead of a traitor who has been hiding in plain sight for over a decade.

But what makes this one so much fun is Anna and her relationship with Sloane. Not the hazy dream they had in the past, but the real, and increasingly honest and equal one they have in the present. Sloane wants to keep her safe. Anna has the right to know all the truths and make her own decisions. Navigating that minefield is even more of a threat to any possibility of their future happiness than any sharpshooters taking potshots from the woods.

The Stonecliffe series has proved to be a fascinating mix of historical romance and romantic suspense, at least based on this second book in the series. So I’ll be reaching back for that first book, An Affair at Stonecliffe, and looking forward to the third, A Scandal at Stonecliffe, coming next year.