Kate Silver’s back in town, and her dead mother just won’t leave her alone.
Kate usually spends her days dressing Hollywood A-listers, but after her estranged mother dies she finds herself elbow-deep in flour in her parents’ bakery…in Deer Lick, Montana. She thought she’d left small-town life far, far behind, but it seems there are a few loose ends.
The boy she once loved, Deputy Matt Ryan, is single and sexy and still has a thing for her…and handcuffs.
Her mother, who won’t follow the white light, is determined to give maternal advice from beyond the grave.
And somehow Kate’s three-day stay has, well…extended. She never planned to fill her mother’s pie-baking shoes—she prefers her Choos, thank you very much. But with the help of a certain man in uniform, Kate quickly learns that sometimes second chances are all the more sweet.
Ten years ago Kate had an argument with her mother that led to tears, name-calling and eventually, Kate leaving home without telling anyone. She’s spent the last 10 years in LA – the last 3 of those 10 being a stylist to the stars – but now she’s back in Deer Lick, Montana for her mother’s funeral. She had seen her mother and father and her siblings during the last 10 years but never in Deer Lick. Now she’s back and having to face some people that are none to happy with her.
One of those people are Matt Ryan. Kate and Matt had dated in high school and beyond but when Kate left she broke Matt’s heart. Sure she had told herself that he would be fine but were either of them really over the other? No Matt’s in her face every time she turns around – even though he’s telling her to stay away from him. Kate’s forced to stay in Deer Lick to help her father at the family bakery, The Sugar Shack, when her siblings decide that she’s the only one who can. She’s trying to make the best of a bad situation, do some good for the town and keep her LA business afloat. But what she wants most to do is be warm and cozy with Matt. How can they do that when they have so many issues – both past and present – to work out?
Matt had some serious issues but when it was all boiled down and his uber-stubborness was put aside we found that he was just hurt from Kate leaving and the fact that he had never stopped loving her. He was a changed man – a man who had come from a broken home and had become a man who was important in his town. He wanted to run for sheriff and keeping his hometown safe was incredibly important to him. I very much admired him for his ambition even though his thoughts about how he was going to get to the point he wanted didn’t always make sense to me.
Kate was a great strong character. She worked her way up to being a great stylist in LA but when she thought about what she wanted in life – and was away from the glitz and glamour of LA – she realized that she was lonely. She didn’t have many friends and really what was making all that money for when you really didn’t have anyone in your life to come home to? What she did in and for the town while she was there was just fantastic. It showed that she really cared about the people of Deer Lick as well as her family.
Kate’s family…Her siblings did piss me off a bit, I must say. They planned, behind her back that she would be the one to stay behind in Deer Lick to help their father at The Sugar Shack. Now when things were explained I knew that it made sense but I didn’t like the fact that they assumed that their jobs were more important than Kate’s. I also didn’t care for the fact that they knew several truly important bits of information, and had for 10 years, that they didn’t bother sharing with Kate. It was almost like she wasn’t really part of the family, only I knew that wasn’t the case.
There was a ghostly element to this story that I didn’t expect and that was that Kate would get mini visits from her mother when she was driving her mother’s old Buick. At first I have to admit to rolling my eyes but the scenes with Kate and her mother were so very touching that a few brought tears to my eyes. Yes, Tracy=sap. lol
Honestly this book was unexpectedly delightful. I had a read a few reviews of it and it was enough to interest me but I really had no idea that I would like it quite as much as I did. It was sweet, funny, romantic and well writtem. I’ll definitely be reading the next books in this series about Kate’s siblings.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
That's a great grade, Tracy! This novella has been getting some good reviews 🙂 I was hesitant at first, but I think I'll be picking it up… 🙂
Actually it's longer than a novella…225? 227 pages…something like that. Definitely worth the read imho. 🙂
Oh, that's good to know! Thanks Tracy 🙂
I'm so with you on her family. The way they railroaded her into staying was beyond wrong. That alone brought my grade down.
I also struggled with the way Matt went back and forth and back and forth.
Otherwise I thought it was really cute.