Dream Lake by Lisa Kleypas

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Dream Lake takes readers once again to the exquisite setting of Friday Harbor, and tells the story of Zoӫ Hoffman, an innkeeper who has all but given up on love. She’s a gentle, romantic soul, but has been so hurt in the past that she dare not trust her heart with anyone. Especially not Alex Nolan. Alex is the most haunted of all the Nolan brothers.

He drinks to keep his demons at bay and not only has he given up on love, he has never, ever believed in it. Zoӫ and Alex are oil and water, fire and ice, sunshine and shadow.

But sometimes, it takes only a glimmer of light to chase away the dark. Dream Lake is classic Lisa Kleypas: romantic, powerful, emotional, and magical.



Review:

Lisa Kleypas has managed to successfully interweave two beautiful love stories – one supernatural and the other in the here and now.  This story starts out with a nameless ghost that is tethered to Rainshadow Road.  He doesn’t know who he is and he can’t leave the house.  He has watched over decades as Rainshadow Road has fallen into disrepair.  Then Sam Nolan buys the house and the ghost has hope that this house that he is stuck in will once again become a beautiful place.  What he doesn’t expect is to finally meet someone that can see him. 

Alex Nolan, Sam’s brother, is an amazingly skilled carpenter that has what it takes to bring Rainshadow Road to its former glory.  Unfortunately, Alex is also a functioning bitter alcoholic going through an even more bitter divorce.  But that doesn’t stop our ghost from being so happy that someone can communicate with him that he tries to follow Alex out the door.  He soon realizes that he is now tethered to Alex and cannot leave his side.  Alex is not amused to find he has a supernatural friend.  He is not sure if what he is seeing is real or if all the liquor that he has been drinking has finally made him hallucinate.  These unwilling companions from different times somehow become necessary to each other in order to survive. 

Enter Zoe.  Zoe is absolutely lovely.  She is humble and kind and just wants to take care of those around her.  The Zoe care package always includes something delicious she whips up in the kitchen of her B&B which she runs with her cousin, Justine.  Zoe is a forever girl through and through.  When she first meets Alex Nolan she knows that she should run as fast as she can.  But she can’t seem to help caring for the man who has never had anyone care for him in his life.  As the two grow closer, we find that Zoe may have the key to unravel the mystery of both Alex and his ghost’s fate..    

Lisa Kleypas hit the ball out of the park with this one.  This is an epic story of loss and love and hope and I can’t recommend it enough.  If you are a fan of romance you must pick this one up.


Nat

Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas

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Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in Friday Harbor, Washington, with a boyfriend, Kevin, who she believes is her soul mate. She has always had a magical side—a gift that finds its way into the glasswork she creates—and she struggles to keep it contained. But when Lucy is blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal, she questions many of her choices. Kevin leaves her and his new lover is none other than Lucy’s own sister.

Meanwhile, facing the severe disapproval of Lucy’s family, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to “romance” Lucy so that she can more easily move on. But when Sam and Lucy begin to feel real sparks between them, Lucy must ask herself if she can easily risk her heart again. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life—even after being broken—can be re-made into something beautiful. And that it is only by discovering who you really are that you can find the one who truly deserves you. (BN.com)

I have been a Lisa Kleypas fan for long time.  She is one of my top three favorite romance authors – in good company with Julia Quinn and Amy Lane.  I initially fell in love with her historical romances.  When she started writing contemporary romance I was skeptical.  Her first, Sugar Daddy, was just meh.  But the following two, Blue-Eyed Devil and Smooth Talking Stranger, were absolutely stellar.  Seeing that she could rock the contemporary romance just as much as she did historical romance, I was super excited to read her new Friday Harbor series.  What did I think of them?  Well keep reading to see what I think of Rainshadow Road.  A review of Dream Lake will be up in the next week or so.  The last in the trilogy, Crystal Cove, will be published in February and you can bet your sweet self that I will be reading and reviewing that one too.

Lucy thinks life is pretty perfect right now.  She is making a living doing what she loves.  She lives on a beautiful Pacific Northwest island with lots of lovely friends.  Her boyfriend, Kevin, of three years is absolutely amazing.  Then all of a sudden that perfection is lost when Kevin showed up in her glass shop out of the blue to inform Lucy their relationship wasn’t working for him anymore and he had met someone else.  That someone else being her sister. 

Handling the news as well as anyone would, Lucy takes off on a bike ride - her way of blowing off some steam. And along the way she meets the very sexy and commitment-phobic Sam Nolan.  That initial meeting sets off a friendship that both insist will never be anything more.   

As is usually the case with a Kleypas book, I really loved the characters.  Sam was my favorite kind of hero.  Geeky AND sexy.  The Nolan brothers are a hot mess.  And when I say hot, I mean, “Hot damn!”  And when I say mess, I mean, “Yikes, look at all the emotional baggage.”  I enjoyed Lucy’s independence and how she was open and honest about protecting herself.  Lucy’s friends, Zoe and Justine, are the best kind of friends.  Between the pastries and the reading, this trio of friends made me think of Bel, Shel and I.  Except that the three of us would probably get into a lot more trouble if we were all living together with no supervision. 

Overall this was a good read.  But I didn’t love it.  Although it was both engaging and romantic with plenty of sexual tension, there seemed to be something missing.  Maybe I am greedy but I wanted more.  I wanted more examples of Sam being a geek.  I wanted more scenes with Lucy and her girlfriends having fun.  And I wanted more magic.  Because there is magic in this book and it is beautiful magic.  But it was so tentatively done that it left me a little confused and unfulfilled.   

That being said…there are two reasons I would recommend this book.  One:  If you are a big Kleypas fan like me, then you should read it for that reason alone.  Two: If you are going to read Dream Lake (and you are because I told you to) then you should read this because the two stories overlap a little bit.  They stand alone but it is my personal opinion that it is fun to see some overlapping scenes through more than one point of view. 

Until next time; when I annoy you by gushing over the second installment in the Friday Harbor Trilogy.

 

Nat

Waiting on Wednesday (5)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that highlights future releases that we are excitedly anticipating.

By Lisa Kleypas
Publication Date: February 28, 2012

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington. She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal: her fiancé Kevin has left her. His new lover is Lucy’s own sister. Lucy's bitterness over being dumped is multiplied by the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life. Facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's parents, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy and hopefully loosen her up and get her over her anger. Complications ensue when Sam and Lucy begin to fall in love, Kevin has second thoughts, and Lucy discovers that the new relationship in her life began under false pretenses. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life—even after being broken—can be made into something new and beautiful

By Julie Cross
Publication Date:  January 17, 2012


The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.
That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.
Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.