Review: Fun contemporary romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 16, 2013
Such a delightful short romance, a fun addition to the series. Molly Harper always writes characters that are entertaining and engaging and I have enjoyed several of her books.Bonnie Turkle works for the Kentucky Tourism Commission and she is on her way to Mud Creek, a small town with a music hall that used to be the pride of the state. The town is negotiating the sale of the property to a new factory that will bring many jobs to the severely depressed town. Her plans are to wade through the artifacts and send them to the historical society to place in museums. Yet when she hears about the history of the place and starts to dig around for information she decides the building needs to be saved. Unfortunately the mayor and town do not see it that way and she has several obstacles to get through before she can get anything accomplished.Will McBride, mayor and self appointed savior of the town meets Bonnie on one of her worst days, as she drives into town her car catches on fire and she loses most of her stuff. He tries to help but is pulled in a different direction so calls in reinforcements, the town locals who are quirky, fun and go out of their way to help. Small towns have the greatest people.Will and Bonnie get off on a good note, they flirt and have fun with each other until he finds out she wants to save the music hall, although the hall has his family name on it, Will doesn’t like what the concert hall did to his father and family and is not happy about saving it. Bonnie has to do some quick negotiations in order to please all parties that will bring Will around to see her side.Molly Harper writes stories with humor, laugh out loud moments and yes, some tears. This is no exception as we meet the quirky characters of Mud Creek. I love how her characters can be snarky yet fun. Two characters, Fred and Joe Bob, are always helping Bonnie whenever she gets into trouble, which is frequently as she goes from her car being on fire to the only home in town to get blown over during a tornado. They even let her drive around a VW Bug she calls Frankenbug because of the many parts it is made up of. And when she calls the new factory a place where they make man-panties, I snorted.The relationship between Will and Bonnie started out great, but stalls when he finds out what she wants to do, I did not like his attitude, I thought he turned mean toward her, he does thaw a bit as they see each other in town but he really did not come around until she came up with some solutions. I also was unsure of Jenny Lee, the sheriff who seemed to befriend her but some conversations were a bit harsh. However the more Bonnie stays and ingrains herself with the community the more people begin to warm up to her, even before they know what her plans are.The story is short but moves fast and I enjoyed the ending. Will and Bonnie’s relationship is not hot and steamy, more mellow and the story is more about Bonnie trying to preserve a piece of history with a cute romance along the way.Review also at Ramblings from a Chaotic MindCopy from publisher for an honest review