The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick

The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick
Published by Park Row Books ISBN 9780778309789
Hardcover, $25.99, 336 pages

When we meet Mitchell in Phaedra Patrick's novel, The Secrets of Love Story Bridge, he is at his job cutting off the locks that people have attached to the bridge where he works in Upchester, England. A famous boy band filmed a video for their song "Lock Me Up With Your Love" on that bridge and ever since the song became a hit, people have been attaching locks with messages of love on them to the bridge.

The locks could weigh down the bridge and cause problems so Mitchell and another man spend their days cutting them off. One day, Mitchell spots a lovely woman accidentally fall off the bridge after attaching a lock and he jumps off the bridge to rescue her.

Mitchell becomes famous when a reporter writes a story about his rescue. He is perplexed by the attention, as he is a private person.  A widower,  he lives with his 10 year-old daughter Poppy in a small apartment. His wife Anita died three years prior.

Mitchell feels guilt about Anita's death. Trained as an architect, he worked long hours for a firm in a town far away designing the Upchester bridge. This kept him away from his wife and daughter, but he felt it was a sacrifice he had to make to advance his career and build a future for his family.

After his wife died, he quit his job to take the bridge maintenance one with steady hours so he can care for his daughter. Mitchell doesn't have many friends, and doesn't realize how lonely he is until he meets Liza, Poppy's music teacher.

It turns out that the woman he rescued from the bridge is Liza's sister Yvette, who had disappeared a month before the fall. Mitchell wants to help Liza and her family find Yvette. He feels like he couldn't save his wife, but maybe he can save Liza's family.

Phaedra Patrick writes lonely people so well. Her previous novel, The Library of Lost and Found, is about a woman who works in a library, but doesn't have much of a life outside that. Patrick creates such empathy for these characters, and I particularly like how she writes children. Poppy is a realistic depiction of a 10 year-old, not a smart-aleck or worldly beyond her years. I also like that the main character of the story is a man.

Patrick clearly believes in family, not only the family we belong to but also the one we create ourselves. The Secrets of Love Story Bridge is a sweet story, with enough of a mystery to keep our attention. Fans of Elizabeth Berg's The Story of Arthur Truluv would enjoy. I recommend it.

My review of The Library of Lost and Found is here.

Thanks for Harlequin for putting me on Phaedra Patrick's tour.

The Summer Villa by Melissa Hill

The Summer Villa by Melissa Hill
Published by MIRA Books ISBN 9780778359982
Trade paperback, $16.99, 384 pages

We all may be stuck in our own homes, but you can visit the beautiful Amalfi Coast in Melissa Hill's latest novel, The Summer Villa. Told in two separate timelines, we meet three young women who are all running away from their homes to stay at Villa Dolce Vita, a small, rather run-down vacation rental in Positano.

Kim is a 30 year-old American woman whose wealthy parents expect her to go to London and marry herself off to a man she doesn't even know to help their business prospects. When Kim refuses, she secretly runs away and ends up at Villa Dolce Vita. There she meets two other young ladies, Colette and Annie.

Colette is taking a well-deserved vacation after running her family's bakery in England after her father deserts the family while his wife fights breast cancer. Annie is an Irish hair stylist who receives this trip from one of her customers when the woman passes away.

Annie is a party girl, and she spends her nights out at the local bars, where she meets a handsome British man and thinks he may be the one. Colette is a sweet young woman who is a little imtimidated by her gorgeous roommates, but when she meets a handsome Italian man who woos her, Annie and Colette are a little surprised and envious.

While spending her days at the pool sunning herself and trying to figure out what she will do with her life, Kim finds a journal filled with affirmations and quotes that speak to her. She begins to take stunning photos of Positano and capture them with these affirmations, and when she posts them on Instagram, they go viral.

Years later, Kim has turned her Instagram posts into a mindfullness book, and she buys Villa Dolce Vita and creates a spa and wellness retreat there. As she prepares for the grand opening, she is struggling with the feeling that she cannot bond with her young daughter, and that her husband will discover this. It also appears that someone is trying to sabotage her grand opening.

Colette is married and dealing with infertility. Her husband is consumed with work and tries to talk her out of going to Positano for Kim's grand opening.  Annie is a single mom who now owns a successful hair salon, and while she is going to the grand opening, something is bothering her about seeing her old friends again.

Each woman is struggling with issues that many women can relate to in the current timeline, and it all comes to a head at the grand opening. There are secrets that come out, and I admit that I was taken by complete surprise, which I enjoyed. Hill skillfully puts all the pieces together and creates a novel that keeps the reader guessing, and as someone who has visited Positano, I was happy to revisit it in this  captivating novel.  If you want to escape to a beautiful place for a few hours, pick up The Summer Villa. Fans of Liane Moriarty's novels will enjoy this one.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on Melissa Hill's tour.

Sunrise on Half Moon Bay by Robyn Carr

Sunrise on Half Moon Bay by Robyn Carr
Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778310099
Hardcover, $27.99, 304 pages

When you want to tune out the news and get lost in a good book, Robyn Carr's latest, Sunrise on Half Moon Bay, is a great place to turn.

Addie is 32 years old, and has spent the last eight years of her life caring first for her father, and then her mother, who lived four years after suffering from a stroke. Now that both of her parents have passed, Addie has to decide what to do with her own life.

Her sister Justine is twenty years older, and was out of the house before Addie was even born. Justine is a successful corporate laywer, working long hours to support her stay-at-home husband Scott and their teenage daughters Olivia and Amber.

Justine and Addie had an agreement that Justine would pay Addie to stay home and take care of their parents, and Justine would pay all of their expenses, including a small stipend for Addie.

Justine has always been a take-charge, decisive person, Addie has been more deliberate. Caring for their ailing parents and an event from Addie's college days has made her reluctant to move forward with her life. She feels stuck, but doesn't know how to move forward.

Her lifelong best friend Jake has been a shoulder to lean on, but now even he has been urging Addie to do something- go back to school, maybe even start dating. And he wouldn't mind if he was the guy she would want to date.

When Justine's husband decides that he wants out of the marriage, she is blindsided. She always thought they were happy. Scott wants half of their marital assets and spousal support, which means that Justine's financial support of Addie is in jeopardy.

Addie and Justine's lives have been turned upside down, and now they have to take a hard look at what they really want out of life and how to get there. They haven't been close as sisters, but now they must figure out a way to pull together and build a new relationship with each other.

The sister relationship is the strongest element of Sunrise on Half Moon Bay. I loved watching Addie and Justine work their way back to each other, depending on each other to get through a new phase of their lives. Justine reevaluates her career situation and has to deal with a big change in her midlife, while Addie is starting a little later than most people at finding a meaningful job.

There is so much that people can relate to here- Addie sacrificing to care for her parents, Justine working long hours at a tough job to provide financially for her family, while still coming home to make dinner, do laundry and help with her daughters' homework. Even Olivia and Amber, having their lives turned upside down by their parents' divorce, are in a situation where many people have been.

I hope that we get to revisit Addie and Justine in a future Half Moon Bay book, I feel like they have become my friends.

Thanks to Harlequin Books for putting me on Robyn Carr's tour.

Robyn Carr's website is here.

New in Paperback- The Returned by Jason Mott

The Returned by Jason Mott

Published by Harlequin Mira ISBN9780778317074  

Trade paperback, $14.95, 352 pages

Every year at the Book Expo of America there is one book there is everywhere and people are buzzing about it. Last year, it was Jason Mott's The Returned, which had already been optioned as a TV series by ABC well before the book was even published. (See more info here on the TV show, now called Resurrection.)

The premise is intriguing- what happens when dead people start turning up alive, looking exactly as they did at their death? Agent Martin Bellamy of the International Bureau of the Returned shows up on the doorstep of Lucille and Harold Hargraves, an elderly couple who lost their son Jacob fifty years ago on his eighth birthday when he drowned in a local river.

With him is a young boy who looks exactly like Jacob. He was found wandering in China and Agent Bellamy was bringing him home. Lucille, who thought that these 'Returned' were the work of the devil, changed her mind the minute she saw her beloved son in front of her. She was willing to believe it was Jacob because she missed him so much.

Harold was more skeptical; he didn't know what to make of this boy in front of him, but he didn't believe it was his son. Agent Bellamy asked them if they wanted to keep Jacob, and Lucille prevailed.

More and more Returned kept turning up, and people became frightened and angry. Protests erupted all over the world, some people believing it was some kind of government conspiracy (what kind of conspiracy, they could not say).

As the number of Returned began to swell out of control, the President of the United States ordered them confined to their homes, but soon they begin to confine them in government buildings in specific cities. Harold and Jacob were out one day, and they were caught by the police and confined to the neighborhood school, which now housed hundreds of Returned.

Harold refused to leave Jacob, and Lucille brought them clean clothes and homemade food, visiting every day. But soon the military took over the camps, and visitors were no longer permitted. The situation deteriorated, and people were fighting for limited resources and a place to sleep.

Fans of the TV series Lost will enjoy this fast-paced, thought-provoking debut novel. Mott's theme of science versus faith will resonate with them. There is an interesting scene where the local reverend is watching a TV show in which a scientist is debating with a minister on who exactly these Returned are, and a man in the audience told them they were both useless as they had no definitive answers. In today's uncertain world, there are parallels to be made here.

The Returned is the kind of book that you will read in one sitting, but keep pondering its themes long after you finish. The plot draws you into this unfamiliar world, and you will identify with the characters, particularly Lucille and Harold. There are a few twists and turns and some exciting action along the way, and I think this book will appeal to so many different types of readers that it has the ability to become a real blockbuster.

rating 4 of 5