Hello, and welcome back! It looks like we're going to be getting back to more really spring-like weather, which makes me happy. It was bad enough we hardly had anything I'd call winter. For Mother Nature to skip spring, too, is just too much. Everything here is blooming weeks ahead of normal, and, while I love the spring flowers, the heat and lack of a good rain so far this month worry me.

This time out, I have Jo Goodman's A Place Called Home (Zebra, received from publisher), her first foray, I think, into contemporary romance from her usual Western historicals. In this one, Thea Wyndham and Mitchell Baker have unexpectedly become guardians of their best friends' children, thanks to a drunk driver. Thea knows she's not parent material, and the idea of trying to raise this trio scares the heck out of her. Mitch never really thought too much about it, but when the horrible accident happens, he's the only one around, never mind the legal arrangements. Thea would really rather step back and let Mitch take on the full daily routine while she contributes financially, and that makes him angry. Only he doesn't yet understand her reasoning, and she doesn't trust him enough to share the horrors of her past, long ago and more recently. But she does love the children, so spending time with them isn't out of the question, even though her fiance isn't very happy about it. Mitch and Thea have a whole lot of obstacles standing in their way, even just to an amicable arrangement for sharing custody of the kids, let alone anything more intimate. Mitch grew up in a completely different world than Thea, so he'll have to work hard at understanding Thea and her unique logic. It's a little difficult even for the reader to understand Thea at the start of this one, which made it a challenge to like her, but if you persist, you'll be rewarded with a complicated, terrific story that will make you laugh and cry. I hated to get to the end of it, despite the rough start. And I'll say, I liked this better than Ms. Goodman's historicals. I hope she has more contemporary stories in the works. I'm borrowing three and a half of Cupid's five arrows for this one.

Until next time, happy reading!

Romance Novels Forum