Jennifer Sylvester has always been a bit of a joke, the town’s banana cake queen. Totally controlled by her parents, Jennifer has been told what to do, what to wear, what to say, and even what color to dye her hair. I felt sorry for Jen. She had no life. She was always baking for the family bakery, a job for which she was never paid. She had no life.
Cletus Winston is the Winston brother who is quirky and odd. His quirky, oddball facade covers his wily intelligence. Cletus plots and plans and there are reasons for everything he does. In the series thus far Cletus has been the Winston brother who’s been amusing and not much else. In this book we get to know Cletus and find out how smart he really is. He observes and collects information on everyone in town.
When Jennifer’s mother decides to make her daughter a television celebrity, Jennifer finally rebels. She turns to Cletus for help.
Jennifer was sweet and likable. I liked her growth over the course of the book. Cletus encourages her to change, and she sets out to find herself.
My only (minor) complaint with this book was that Cletus was a lot different from what I expected. He was almost simple in the other books. Here he comes off as shrewd and calculating. At times I had trouble reconciling him with the Cletus I knew and loved thus far in the series. He was more manly and romantic here, almost a different person. I liked him, but he wasn’t Cletus to me.
Katrina Lewis is a widowed mother. Grieving and lost when her husband died suddenly, she left her librarian job in New York City and returned to her childhood home in Lauder Lake where she’s spent the past three years just living her life. Her four year old daughter, Abbey, is a huge fan of a PBS children’s show about a cartoon detective cat, and the theme song is sung by a British musician. When Katrina decides to try to find the musician for a presentation at the small town’s library, she is surprised when he agrees to it and then shows up late and drunk. She’s even more surprised when he proceeds to charm the entire crowd.
I was given an ARC by the author in exchange for an honest review.
I purchased this book last October and forgot about it. It sat on my kindle unread. I stumbled across it in a review of a different book by the same author. I picked this one up and read it in one day on Memorial Day.