A gentle love story perfect for anyone looking for love amid personal, family, and financial crises.
With her promotion to vice president of digital inventory at a Sonoma winery, Natalie Harper finally has the financial security she's always wanted, but a sudden tragedy sends her home to rescue her late mother's charming bookstore.
Once in San Francisco, Natalie moves back into her childhood home, an eclectic set of apartments above the bookshop, a home she shares with her grandfather Andrew, who is suffering from dementia and other mysterious ailments. Blythe, Natalie's mother, loved books, but she was not a savvy businesswoman. Natalie arrives to find unpaid bills and back taxes. Housed in the historic Sunrose Building, the bookshop certainly has stories of its own to tell: Originally a saloon and brothel, it was eventually bought by Natalie's great-grandparents, who converted it into a home and apothecary. Luckily, “hammer for hire” Peach Gallagher shows up. Strong and gorgeous, the contractor catches Natalie's eye, and he certainly is drawn to the curly-haired proprietress. But Peach doesn't date clients, and Natalie is gun-shy from her previous relationship. Plus, she's already met Peach’s adorable little girl, Dorothy. Natalie isn't about to break up a marriage, but she doesn’t know Peach is actually divorced. Wiggs skillfully manipulates the stock in trade of a master romance novelist as she orchestrates Peach and Natalie's inevitable love story. To challenge Peach, enter Trevor Dashwood, a gorgeous and wealthy children's book author, whose books have already won Dorothy's heart. Hosting a book signing with Trevor might help the store’s bottom line. Meanwhile, Natalie, Peach, and Andrew find historical artifacts hidden in the Sunrose building’s walls. Will it be enough to save the store?
A gentle love story perfect for anyone looking for love amid personal, family, and financial crises.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-291409-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
A novel about family estrangement that relies too often on the obvious.
Haigh’s latest novel begins with a hit-and-run in Shanghai and ends with a Christmas wedding in Boston, and in between those events, a family is rattled, upended, and—maybe?—healed.
The accident victim is 22-year-old Lindsey Litvak, who left college to travel to China with her boyfriend, their plan to teach English and immerse themselves in the culture. The boyfriend returned home, but Lindsey remained. When her divorced parents, Claire and Aaron, get the call that their daughter has been seriously injured, they fly to Shanghai to try to piece together what happened and will her back to health. Meanwhile, Lindsey’s 11-year-old sister, Grace—adopted by Claire and Aaron as an infant from China—weathers the storm at her summer camp, wondering why Lindsey hasn’t responded to her texts, unaware of her parents’ anguish. As Claire and Aaron battle hospital bureaucracy, a language barrier, and their own guilt and fear, Haigh revisits the events that put Lindsey on that dark, late-night street and reveals the rift between parents and daughter that kept Lindsey on the other side of the world. Haigh draws a strong character sketch of Grace, who slowly awakens to the ramifications of her Chinese background. Lindsey feels less fully formed, her actions contradictory. What happens to her in Shanghai is predictable, and yet her youthful naïveté about matters of the heart and the darker side of human nature seem at odds with the ease with which she embraces her new life. Haigh’s message here, beyond highlighting the pain of family estrangement, is perplexing. “We live at the intersection of causality and chance,” an older Grace muses at the novel’s end, a conclusion too superficial to leave much of an impression.
A novel about family estrangement that relies too often on the obvious.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780316577137
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Much like the holiday itself, this Christmas romance has its ups and downs.
The adult children of two rock stars attempt to reunite their mothers’ band.
Octavia Dawkins and Trina Gallard headlined the band Steel Birds in the 1990s. When they were pregnant at the same time, they had an epic fight that destroyed both the band and their friendship. Octavia’s son, Beat, and Trina’s daughter, Melody, grew up in the spotlight, but Beat was fawned over by the press, while Melody’s awkward teenage years made her the object of derision and disdain. Thirty years after the band’s dramatic and mysterious breakup, its biggest hit is experiencing a resurgence of popularity. Beat and Melody agree to appear on a livestreamed reality show in which they'll try to broker a reunion, hopefully to culminate in their mothers’ appearing on stage together on Christmas Eve. Beat plans to use the money to pay off a blackmailer threatening to reveal a shameful family secret, while Melody hopes to shake up her strained relationship with her mother. The palpable, intense chemistry between Beat and Melody turns them into instant celebrities, leading fans to embrace their on-camera romance with even more intense fervor than the possible Steel Birds reunion. Bailey’s novel delivers madcap, humorous adventures, including a delightful reunion for Trina and Octavia. However, as characters, Beat and Melody seem out of sync with the plot. Both are bitterly aware of the cruelty of fame, so it's hard to believe they would willingly subject themselves to the kind of scrutiny required by an all-day livestream. An uncomfortable subplot links traumatic experiences during Beat’s teenage years to his sexual proclivities as an adult. Eventually, everything is tied up with a bow, but the easy resolutions for so many long-standing feuds and family dramas feel pat and unearned.
Much like the holiday itself, this Christmas romance has its ups and downs.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9780063308299
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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