Herons Landing

Honeymoon Harbor #1

A Small-Town Romance

by JoAnn Ross

There’s no place to fall in love like the place you left your heart 

Welcome to Honeymoon Harbor, the brand-new, long-awaited series by beloved New York Times bestselling author JoAnn Ross, where unforgettable characters come face-to-face with the kind of love that grabs your heart and never lets go.

Working as a Las Vegas concierge, Brianna Mannion is an expert at making other people’s wishes come true. It’s satisfying work, but a visit home to scenic Honeymoon Harbor turns into a permanent stay when she’s reminded of everything she’s missing: the idyllic small-town charm; the old Victorian house she’d always coveted; and Seth Harper, her best friend’s widower and the neighborhood boy she once crushed on—hard. After years spent serving others, maybe Brianna’s finally ready to chase dreams of her own.

Since losing his wife, Seth has kept busy running the Harper family’s renovation business and flying way under the social radar. But when Brianna hires him to convert her aging dream home into a romantic B and B, working together presents a heart-stopping temptation Seth never saw coming. With guilt and grief his only companions for so long, he’ll have to step out of the past long enough to recognize the beautiful life Brianna and he could build together.

I love contemporary romances where it is all about the people.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m an equal opportunity reader and enjoy a love story with a little paranormal twist, historical setting, or a bit of a whodunit.  But there’s just something special about a book that just lets you live the character’s life with them for a bit.

Brianna has come home after years away, ready to make her old dream come true and become the owner of a B&B.  It brings her back to family … and the man she’s always loved.

Seth and Brianna have been friends forever, but never anything more.  He had found the love of his life at 15 and never looked at anyone else.  Now a widower, Seth has cut himself off from a lot in life, basically going through the motions … until Brianna comes back.

A slow build romance, Herons Landing is all about second chances.  While Brianna is starting a new chapter in her life, she’s also realizing that her feelings for Seth are still strong.  And Seth may have been grieving his wife for the last couple of years but time spent with Brianna shows him that there is a whole life still before him if he’s willing to take a chance.

As the start of a new series, there are some extra characters to introduce but I didn’t feel like Ross spent too much time here.  Just enough to be relevant to the story and maybe get you a little curious about what comes next.  There’s also a decent bit of history among these people so it makes sense to spend some time looking at them a bit more.

There’s also a side story with Seth’s parents that adds a little extra to an already heart-tugging story.  And as they have to take a look at themselves and where their relationship may be going, it also causes Seth to realize that he’s got to do some evaluation of his own.

Angsty but not full of drama, Herons Landing is one of those character driven pieces that you need to just sit back and enjoy.