Series: Friday Harbor #2
Published by St. Martin's Press on February 28, 2012
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 308
Format: Paperback
Source: the library
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Also in this series: Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor, Dream Lake, Crystal Cove
Also by this author: Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor, Dream Lake, Crystal Cove, Cold-Hearted Rake, Marrying Winterborne, Devil in Spring, Hello Stranger, Devil's Daughter, Chasing Cassandra, Devil in Disguise
Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington. She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal: her fiancé Kevin has left her. His new lover is Lucy's own sister. Lucy's bitterness over being dumped is multiplied by the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life. Facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's parents, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy and hopefully loosen her up and get her over her anger. Complications ensue when Sam and Lucy begin to fall in love, Kevin has second thoughts, and Lucy discovers that the new relationship in her life began under false pretenses. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life―even after being broken―can be made into something new and beautiful.
Review
Rainshadow Road, the sequel to Kleypas’s Christmas Eve in Friday Harbor, is a comfortable love story with a touch of magic realism and more emotional depth than its predecessor. Glass artist Lucy Marinn is blindsided when her boyfriend of two years announces that he is leaving her for another woman—Lucy’s spoiled sister, Alice, with whom he has been involved for months. Though determined never to fall in love again, Lucy is drawn into a relationship with local winegrower Sam Nolan (the middle brother from Christmas Eve in Friday Harbor.) The example of his parents’ highly dysfunctional marriage has left Sam equally unwilling to risk his heart, but when Lucy’s bicycle is struck by a car, Sam steps forward to take care of her while she recovers from her injuries. This being a romance, the outcome is never in doubt, and indeed, the lack of suspense is a minor flaw in this otherwise engaging novel. There is plenty of romantic tension, however, as the two fight their attraction and attempt to keep things on the level of friendship.
Some reviewers have complained about the touches of magic in Rainshadow Road. Personally, I rather liked them, with one exception.
While I wouldn’t rank Rainshadow Road among Kleypas’s best works, it’s a nice, satisfying summer read. I’m looking forward to the third book in the series, Dream Lake, featuring the youngest and most emotionally damaged of the Nolan brothers, the newly-divorced Alex.
NOTE: Review slightly revised on 4/22/2019
*****
The books in the Friday Harbor series, in order (links go to reviews on this blog):