One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Kowalski Family, Book 4
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 384 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Demolitions expert Mitch Kowalski is a rolling stone, a rambling man through and through. That serves him well, as his company has a diverse and geographically wide-spread clientele. It fits his social life just fine, too, because Mitch is a good-time guy. He enjoys women, all sorts of women, but he's always upfront about the fact that he plays, never stays.

It's been three years since his last visit to hometown Whitford, Maine, but his baby brother broke his leg and can't manage the family lodge until he gets the cast off. Mitch has committed to six weeks of his time while Ryan heals. He's not back in town a day before he steps into the town's diner and meets the new-to-him owner, Paige Sullivan.

Suddenly six weeks in a town full of people who know every last one of his wildest antics growing up...and still gossip about them...doesn't seem so bad. Especially now that he knows exactly how he plans to spend his downtime, and with whom.

Growing up with a weak, needy, wanderlust mother who spends her life chasing after one man or another molded Paige into the independent woman that she is. For two years she's been living her dream, putting down roots, owning her own business, her own tiny little home, dependent on no man for her happiness. As far as Paige is concerned, men are nice enough to look at, but they offer nothing that she...and a few good batteries...can't take care of herself.

Then again, some men are nicer to look at than others, and gorgeous Mitch Kowalski definitely reminds Paige how easy it would be to submit to a man's hard-pressed seduction. And when no-strings Mitch locks horns with no-man Paige, the sparks that flare up between them are hot enough to burn both of their tightly-held convictions right to the ground.


There are several things I liked about Mitch and Paige's book, not the least of which was the fact that it didn't read like the fourth book in a series. I read the first book over a year ago but missed the previous two, and I didn't know how that would affect the read. It wasn't a problem at all.

Stacey set up the characters and the town with a deft hand, painting them with personality and vibrant color, capturing the small-town charm and the peccadilloes of the residents in a way that felt charming and fresh and new. This could very well have been a series debut.

Mitch and Paige were a lot of fun together. On their own, Paige appealed to me a little more than Mitch did, but I didn't dislike him. He just seemed a bit shallow, more driven by self-interest, especially initially, than I prefer in a main romantic lead character. Paige, on the other hand, charmed me from start to finish. I loved her independence and her determination to make her way and follow her dreams on her own merits. No man needed.

Their road to Happily Ever After is a fairly well-traveled one. It isn't the most original premise. The plot is fairly predictable. He's a total commitment-phobe who never leaves a woman unsatisfied, but always leaves. She's the determined firecracker, the only one who refuses to cave to his many and varied charms. Of course he changes her mind, of course she changes his.

Though there aren't many surprises, neither are there a bunch of big misunderstandings, unnecessary angst, or any of the other trite, ubiquitous relationship conflicts that drive me a little batty.

Still, had their relationship been the only thing going on in the book, I probably would have gotten a little bored. Stacey proved herself more wily than that, though. There are several secondary and ancillary plot threads that pop up throughout the narrative, and secondary characters play an important role in adding diversity and depth to both the cast and the tale. There was also a bit of groundwork laid, I believe, for Mitch's two remaining single brothers and their stories.

This ended up being a really fun contemporary romance. Sweet in places, quirky and charming in others, a little funny here and there, a lot sexy here and there. With the diversity in the plot threads, there are even elements that lean in the chick lit direction every now and then. I enjoyed it.

Stacey has appealing literary voice, and she's created a lovable world that makes me want to pop open an online map so I can figure out how to get to Whitford for a short vacation. The characters feel like old friends. I may have missed the second and third books in this charming series, but I have every plan to continue on from here.

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Kowalski Family, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 4056 Locations
Formats: Mass Market Paperback, Kindle


They were high school sweethearts, but when Keri Daniels shook off their small New Hampshire hometown after graduation and headed for the bright lights of L.A., it broke Joe Kowalski's heart. In the eighteen years since, he's still the standard to which other men are measured, but the highly paid entertainment reporter is a California girl now and has been for a long time. Memories of Joe are fond, but she's always been more interested in her career than in sentimental romance. And if it weren't for her bulldog of an editor, memories of him would be all she'd ever have to worry about.

Unfortunately, Joe Kowalski is now a best-selling and extremely reclusive author and Keri's editor has found out that Keri and Joe were an item way back in the day. Now Keri's job depends on her getting an exclusive interview...with the one man in the world least likely to be thrilled with the idea.

When Joe finds out that Keri is back in town, asking around for his phone number (gotta love the small town grape vine), he knows instantly why she's trying to find him. He's been dodging her editor for years, and has been expecting the day to come when she'd find out that he and Keri had a past. But Keri is his past and Joe has no intention of giving her an interview.

Problem is, when they meet for dinner so he can tell her that, he instead finds himself proposing a ludicrous challenge to his old flame. If she comes on a family camping trip with him and his parents, brothers, sister, and all their respective spouses and kids, he'll answer one question a day for every day she participates in family functions.

She can't say no, she's loathe to say yes, and her future is now dependent on her past.

There was quite a lot to like in this book by Shannon Stacey. There was a fair amount of humor, as city girl Keri gets stuck in the wilds of New England surrounded by people who have plenty of reasons to be less than forgiving for ditching Joe all those years ago. Lots of room for hijinks there. But instead of sticking with the comedic tone throughout, there were also several deeper, more serious issues touched upon. Rocky marriages, separation and divorce, single parenthood, and alcoholism were spread across main and secondary characters and they were all handled believably and realistically. It added a nice dimension to the story.

I enjoyed the secondary characters, and I loved Joe. I never warmed up to Keri. I get that she's all about the city life now, but she grew up in the same town with Joe, just a couple hours from the campground where she meets up with the Kowalski clan. I would have thought she'd at least be vaguely familiar with the general area and natural environment, even if it's on an strictly academic level. And okay, I admit it, I felt the way she left Joe all those years ago made her a little unsympathetic. And I was never totally clear on her motive for leaving in the first place. Did she leave because of an identity issue? Did she leave for a career? I thought it was one, then the other was brought up, so I was never really sure. From a plotting standpoint, she never really wavered on her intent to return to L.A., even late in the book, so hooking up with Joe seemed a little shallow on her end. It was clear that Joe still loved her - always had, always would - so the seemingly one-sided nature of their reacquaintance was slightly off-putting.  

Even when I look beyond that, I had a problem with her. She's supposed to be a savvy, intelligent reporter with several years experience and a job riding on the outcome of the interview and can't come up with one single probing question given the parameters Joe dictated. They weren't that limiting, or shouldn't have been for someone who knows how to be a reporter. It made it difficult to maintain a willing suspension of disbelief, and it wasted what could have been an opportunity to establish more of Joe's character in an interesting way.

I wanted to like her more, because I truly did love Joe and enjoyed every other aspect of the book. There was a lot of entertainment offered, and much of it had more depth than I'd anticipated, balanced nicely with humor. To be a completely successful romance for me, though, I have to like both the protagonists, and in Keri's case, I just didn't. Still, this was my first experience with Shannon Stacey's books and I enjoyed it enough to try some of her other titles. I look forward to them.