Reviewer: Tracy Now That You Mention It by Kristan Higgins
Publisher: HQN
Publication Date: December 26th 2017
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Women's Fiction
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
One step forward. Two steps back. The Tufts scholarship that put Nora Stuart on the path to becoming a Boston medical specialist was a step forward. Being hit by a car and then overhearing her boyfriend hit on another doctor when she thought she was dying? Two major steps back.
Injured in more ways than one, Nora feels her carefully built life cracking at the edges. There's only one place to land: home. But the tiny Maine community she left fifteen years ago doesn't necessarily want her. At every turn, someone holds the prodigal daughter of Scupper Island responsible for small-town drama and big-time disappointments.
With a tough islander mother who's always been distant and a wild-child sister in jail, unable to raise her daughter--a withdrawn teen as eager to ditch the island as Nora once was--Nora has her work cut out for her if she's going to take what might be her last chance to mend the family.
But as some relationships crumble around her, others unexpectedly strengthen. Balancing loss and opportunity, a dark event from her past with hope for the future, Nora will discover that tackling old pain makes room for promise...and the chance to begin again.
Nora Stuart heads home to Scupper Island after she gets hit by a car and then breaks up with her boyfriend. She needs some emotional downtime and needs her home. Of course her mother is a pretty unemotional Mainer and her teenage niece is pretty angry at the world so things are a little rough at first.
Nora had been bullied throughout her high school years. She gained a lot of weight, had anxiety issues and acne. She was a good student, however, and won the coveted scholarship to Tufts. Once she left the island she lost weight and became a different person. When she returns to Scupper she finds herself fighting herself to become the old Nora. She’s not about to let that happen.
Nora runs into an old friend, stays away from others and makes new ones. She tries to come to terms with her life and what she needs emotionally and also deals with her mother and the reasons her father left suddenly when she was in Jr. High. She also happens to fall in love, but that’s really a side story.
Now That You Mention It is different from other KH books that I’ve read. I thought it was more women’s fiction than romance and that was ok. Higgins still has a wonderful writing style and she’s a great storyteller so it was still a great book.
I really liked Nora and her quirky, funny ways. I’m sure it was awkward being back in a town that you had perceived as hating you. Yes, she pretty much thought the entire island hated her. She learned that she wasn’t the only one who had changed and sometimes that was even for the better. I loved that she worked out her relationship with her mother as well as with her niece. The romance portion of the book was also engaging, just not the central theme of the book.
Overall I really enjoyed NTYMI and definitely recommend it.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Leave a Reply