Law Beaumont and Kristen Hemmings have watched each other from a distance for years. But Law, a bartender with a bad-boy past, and Kristen, an assistant principal devoted to helping her community, couldn’t seem more different. When they unite to mentor a young foster child and to help Law’s troubled daughter through the aftermath of her parents’ ugly divorce, their attraction deepens. They face the undeniable connection between them, and a whirlwind of challenges they can only conquer together.

A stirring love story and a candid look at the complexities of divorce, substance abuse, and our country’s foster care system, Love on Mimosa Lane is a love song to an entire community, and a novel about the power of family—the family you’ve been given, the one you’ve chosen, and the one that can lift you up, even when the world is tearing you down.

Love on Mimosa Lane is more than just a romance, which is there in the relationship between Kristen and Law, but it’s also so much more.  There is the relationship between Law and his daughter and his ex-wife, which has been strained due to a very difficult divorce.  We also meet Fin, a foster kid in his last chance home, who has been disappointed too many times to count.  Plus, there is a lot of soul searching to be done by Law and Kristen about themselves, their pasts and whether they are brave enough to get involved with each other.  I loved all of the characters and felt deeply for them as they worked their way through their troubles.  And althought those troubles could become difficult to handle at times, it’s worth it to read all the way to the end.

For those who love books by Robin Carr, Sheryl Woods and Susan Wiggs, Anna DeStefano may be a new addition to your go-to list.  Love on Mimosa Lane has an abundance of heart-tugging moments, wonderfully crafted characters and a tender look at what really makes up a family – a reminder about the importance of the entire community and giving yourself up to love.  It’s a complex story and one that will touch your heart, even as it makes you shed a tear or two.

(This is the first in the “Seasons of the Heart” novels that I’ve read and I really don’t think that it made any kind of impact.  So if it is your first one too, go for it.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.)