Blog Tour and Review: Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home (An Emerald Lake Novel)

About the Book:

Ten years and two hundred miles. That's what separates Andi Powell from quiet, secluded Emerald Lake-and that's exactly how she likes it. But now her job brings her back to the hometown she's tried so hard to forget . . . and to Nate Duncan, the man she's never been able to.

Nate once looked at Andi with love in his eyes. But that was before she left him in the dust to pursue her big-city dreams. Now he's the town's ruggedly handsome mayor with the power to break Andi's career like she broke his heart. As the two clash over the future of Emerald Lake, the sparks that fly between them rekindle a passion neither of them can deny.

Andi may have left town looking for the life she thought she wanted. But could everything she needs have been in Emerald Lake all along?

My Comments:

I've read in some places that women shouldn't get in the habit of reading romance novels; that either the general market version or the Christian version set up unrealistic expectations and can cause you to think that your real life should be like the fantasy in those books.  I can honestly say that I really don't think that's a problem for me; I know the difference between real and make-believe and know that romance novels of any ilk are make-believe.  However, let me tell you that I'm in love, seriously in love, with Nate, the hero of this book.  I know he's make-believe and I'm not unhappy at home, but let me tell you, if I was twenty years younger and Nate really existed, well, he'd never give me a second look since he's been in love with Andi forever, but a girl can dream, right?  

Nate is the hometown boy grown into a man.  He's a man who loves the baby sister he has had to raise.  He's a man who cares about the boys who play on the town's football team.  He's a man who cares about the people in the town who cared for him when it seemed all was lost.  He's a man who, despite himself, has cared for Andi since they were kids.  

The women in this book bond over knitting and a yarn shop run by Andi's mother and grandmother is the setting for many scenes.  It is almost enough to make me want to see if there were any knitting needles in the bag of stuff from my mom that my dad sent over here but I suspect I lost those years ago. Mom learned to knit once but never liked it.  She remembered enough to teach me the basic stitches once upon a time, so I took the needles, and I'm sure lost, bent or otherwise arranged for them to no longer be available.

All in all, it is as sweet a romance as you expect by looking at the cover.  It has a few bedroom scenes that are too descriptive if such things bother you, but I liked the fact that those moments expressed what they felt for each other--it wasn't one of those deals where you wondered if they even liked each other outside the bedroom.  I enjoyed this book and give it a B+--it was a wonderful romance, but it didn't stray from the tried and true formula plot.  It is the first book in a series and I look forward to reading the others.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available for this blog tour.