A LOT LIKE FOREVER

In this small-town romance, an engaged couple struggles to reconnect.

Trent Connolly and Whitney Carlisle should be happy. They’re both successful professionals in the charming California town of Blue Moon Bay: He’s a champion bodybuilder–turned–bar owner and she’s head of marketing and tourism for the entire town. Their courtship, starting in a pumpkin patch and culminating in a corn-maze proposal, sounds like a fairy tale. But real life has a way of intruding on even the most storybook of romances, especially for Whitney. Her mother is about to enter a nursing home with Alzheimer’s, the mayor’s son may be gunning for Whitney’s job, and a fairly recent car accident has exacerbated worrying symptoms of a chronic illness Whitney has thus far avoided disclosing to Trent. For his part, Trent can’t understand why the love of his life is slowly but surely pulling away, dodging any talk of wedding plans and spending more time in the office and much less at the couple’s home. Proud and fiercely independent since childhood, Whitney struggles more and more to keep it all together so as not to burden Trent, but as the pressures mount, Whitney realizes the life she’s worked so hard to build may fall apart. This is the third and final entry in Snow’s Blue Moon Bay series, and Whitney’s best friends and previous protagonists, Sarah and Jess, provide moral support and plenty of wisecracks at the heroine’s side. In a genre full of the blush of first love or lust, or both, it’s refreshing to read a story of an established couple, who must deal with what happens after most romance novels end—family, health, and work issues that should ideally be conquered as a team, even when that approach meets resistance from one or both parties. Trent is a gallant but realistic hero, sometimes acting to make Whitney’s life easier without consulting her first. Though the couple’s communication skills are sometimes worrisome, even at the end, Whitney and Trent are a pair worth rooting for throughout.

A sweet conclusion to a romantic trilogy.