Review: Up at Butternut Lake

Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel (The Butternut Lake Trilogy)

About the Book:

It's been ten years since Allie Beckett crossed the threshold of her family cabin at Butternut Lake, Minnesota. Now, newly widowed after the death of her husband in Afghanistan, she's returned with her five-year-old son.

There, she reconnects with the friends she had in childhood-best girlfriend Jax, now married with three kids and one on the way, and Caroline, owner of the local coffee shop. What Allie doesn't count on is a newcomer to Butternut Lake, Walker Ford. 

Up at Butternut Lake follows these four unforgettable characters across a single summer as they struggle with love, loss, and what it means to take risks, confront fears, and embrace life, in all of its excitement and unpredictability.

Allie Beckett could never have imagined, when she ran away from her old life, that she was running into a whole new life, up at the lake….

My Comments:

My mom is from an area not far from the one in which this book was set so I recognized many of the place names in this book.  I'm also familiar with the topography of the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" which I'm sure added to my enjoyment of the story.  

Allie wasn't moving on from the death of her husband and being in the places she shared with him kept bringing pain.  She returned to a favorite childhood spot, which happened to be a place she never took her husband.  In this small town she begins to heal but as she  moves into a new relationship she has to decide what type of relationship she needs to maintain with her late husband.

I liked the way Walker moved in slowly.  I  liked the way Allie didn't want temporary men in her son's life.  I didn't like the fact that they got intimate very quickly--it seems that once Allie decided she wanted to be more than friends they headed to bed, and yes, we got to watch.  

Usually the secondary characters in romance novels are forgettable.  In this case, I think my favorite character in the book was Jax, a secondary character.  She's weak and flawed and she makes mistakes, but she loves her family tremendously.  Jax's husband Jeremy is my second favorite  He has to forgive and he does, over and over again, even though it is hard.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via Edelweiss.  Grade:  B+