I devoured this second-chance romance in a day because I had to see how everything played out. This is the third in the Blue Heron series and is Colleen O’Rourke’s story.

Colleen’s as entertaining as ever, running her Manningsport, NY bar with her twin brother, Connor, and flirting with every guy who comes in, all while playing town matchmaker. She thinks of herself as happy, but really she’s lonely because she’s never truly gotten over her first love. She and Lucas Campbell were the real deal back in high school and college, but a minor overreaction on her part and a misunderstanding on his part caused them to break up when they were in their early twenties. We don’t really know how that happened until a ways into the book because Higgins tells this story with the same flashback approach she has used in the other books. So we get the whole history while seeing how things develop now.

Lucas has been living in Chicago for his entire adult life (they had a long-distance relationship in college) but he’s back in Manningsport for a family emergency. This naturally brings Colleen and him into contact. Colleen, despite her big and confident personality, becomes a bit of an idiot around Lucas because she just isn’t over him. He looks as good as ever and their chemistry hasn’t dissipated, either. She experiences verbal diarrhea around him, which is generally funny.

As always, the story is full of family dynamics. In this case, it’s three of them—Colleen’s mom, dad, and stepmom; Lucas’s cousin, uncle, and aunt; and Lucas’s original family (his mom and dad). We don’t see much of Lucas’s dad, but we understand the impact both his mom’s early death and what happened with his dad had on him. Lucas’s “adoptive” family plays a very important role in the story, as its his uncle’s illness that brings him to town. Colleen’s family is complicated but not as troubled as Lucas’s.

There are also some subplots and numerous minor characters. The most notable one is her matchmaking attempt with Paulie and Bryce (Lucas’s cousin). I never really got into that one. Bryce was pretty clueless about everything and a total player who I had trouble imagining changing. But Lucas’s uncle’s illness is really important for Lucas, as is his uncle’s request that he help Bryce grow up. That’s a little funny at times, but I just never liked Bryce. Despite that, the main story made up for it for me.

Since this is a Higgins book, the writing is top notch. She is just one of the best writers out there for taking the reader on an emotional journey. The dialogue is crisp and witty and the (primary) plot is satisfying and well laid out. The heat level is not very high, due to her way of writing around the details while still giving you a good idea of what’s going on.

Obviously if you’re a Higgins fan, you’ll want to read this one. But if you like contemporary romances with a big cast, you’ll probably like it, as well. I’ve got book #4 on my desk waiting to be read.

So despite some of my earlier reservations, I’m clearly a Higgins fan now since I can’t stop reading her books.

The Best Man was an enemies-to-lovers one. Faith Holland grew up being in love with Jeremy and intimidated by Jeremy’s best friend, Levi Cooper. Levi was never nice to her. Especially when he convinced Jeremy to come out of the closet just as the two of them were about to say their vows in front of the entire town of Manningsport, New York. After that humiliating debacle, she moved to San Francisco. Jeremy stayed on as the town’s doctor. Levi left the Army and moved back to Manningsport and became the town police chief.

Three years later, Faith returns to Manningsport—temporarily—in response to a mild family crisis. She’s a landscape designer and intends to fix up the family’s old barn so they can do weddings (they own one of the local wineries). She’s also got to keep her father from marrying a rather unpleasant and apparently gold-digging woman.

On her way into town from the airport, she’s pulled over for speeding by none other than Levi. It doesn’t go well for Faith, but it’s also evident they have some serious hostility between them.

He glanced at her license then at her.

“Yes, it’s a bad picture,” she snapped. “Want a tissue sample?”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. This has expired, though. Another fine.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she crossed her arms under her chest. Still had that great rack.

“How was Afghanistan?” she asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Really great. I’m thinking of getting a summer place there.

They clearly have a ways to go before they get together.

Most of the book centers around Faith and her family and their antics. Faith’s relationship with her family is good, but there’s some tension that doesn’t come to a head until late in the book. When she was twelve, Faith survived a car wreck that killed her mom and she’s always felt that her family sort of blamed her for the wreck. Still, Faith’s voice is great and full of humor.

Faith had dressed for the occasion, oh, yes. One does not meet one’s gay ex-fiancé without looking fantastic. Her cutest San Francisco dress, a bright yellow confection with good seaming and tulle flowers bunched along the hem. In SF, it had seemed like sunshine itself; now, seeing Jessica dressed in black skinny jeans and a black V-neck sweater, Faith felt like a giant kindergartener. Well. At least she had on slutty shoes.

With Levi, it’s the whole town’s antics instead. People call him for the most mundane things, and it’s pretty funny. He crawls under a deck to rescue a chicken from a dog that just wants to be friends. He’s resigned to it.

Levi sighed. More days than not, he imagined that he would die at the hands of Officer Everett Field’s general ineptitude. Alas, Everett was the only child of Marian Field, Manningsport’s mayor, and basically had a job for life. He wasn’t a bad kid, and he had a wicked case of hero worship where Levi was concerned, but he drew his weapon roughly six times a day.

We also see Levi and his younger sister Sarah, who’s in her first semester of college and struggling to adjust. Their mom died a year earlier. Sarah keeps wanting to come home and Levi’s constantly fighting her because he wants her to have the opportunity he didn’t have.

Faith stays with her grandparents at first, but that’s draining so she rents an apartment over the opera house, which turns out to be the same place Levi lives. And Levi happens to be around when she has a medical emergency so he can save the day—and they can get a little closer. It takes some missteps, but they gradually begin to see each other in different lights. It helps that Faith is finally coming to terms with what happened with Jeremy and Levi’s role in it. She and Jeremy are friends again and she’s handling it.

Overall, this was another enjoyable Higgins novel. I laughed out loud several times, cringed in appropriate places, and rooted for Faith and Levi despite the fact that he was kind of a jerk to her. He changes (believably) and so does Faith. You’ll like it if you’re already a fan or if you just like humorous small-town romance.

Here’s another installment of my favorite series. Needless to say, I was excited to read it and pretty much devoured it in two days. This one is May Shipley and Alec Rossi’s (Zara’s brother) story.

I admit, I was a little confused when I first read the back blurb, since I’d been under the impression that May was a lesbian from previous books. However, it’s clear pretty early that she’s bi (which I’m sure fits the previous books just fine).

The book opens with May catching her girlfriend of ten months brazenly cheating in Alec’s bar, The Gin Mill. Alec fortunately keeps her from actually injuring the obnoxious woman her girlfriend is cheating with. He helps her move out that night and back into her parents’ house. Which is of course, humiliating. She’s got a history of being a little unstable, especially as a recovering alcoholic. Still, she’s finished law school and has her own firm (with a partner) doing real estate law (okay, fortunately that only comes in as significant at the very end of the book—phew).

Right after that, May has a function she has to go to that the now ex-girlfriend will be at, so she asks Alec to go with her as her fake date. He agrees and afterward they surprise each other with a hookup. Their chemistry is as strong as you’d expect with Bowen writing it. They eventually decide to have a no-strings-attached fling, which is great for a while. May’s still struggling with the end of what she thought would be a long relationship and Alec’s commitment-phobic, so they’re perfectly suited.

As ever, the book has funny moments but still deals with serious issues on both sides. Alec’s full of really bad jokes and there’s an ongoing funny with May claiming to have a relationship with “Selena from law school,” who is actually Alec. But then May’s alcoholism recovery is significant, though it’s not beaten into the ground or anything. I’d say there’s even less of it than Jude’s addiction fight in Steadfast, so Speakeasy’s not as heavy a book as that one. Still, her “addiction is an asshole,” as she puts it. Alec’s problems are less dramatic, but they shape him just the same. He’s running a successful bar, but he knows he needs to expand his offerings a little to stay competitive. His uncle could help him, but the guy thinks Alec’s still the thoughtless party boy he was as a teenager.

Of course the voice and dialogue are great as usual. Alec comes across at the beginning as a carefree guy who really isn’t interested in anything serious, even though he changes dramatically over the course of the book. May thinks his attitude will help her loosen up and live a little. Again, this time without alcohol.

There was a time in my life—in college—when I ran a little wild. I like thinking that Alec can see the fun girl in me. Maybe she isn’t totally gone.

Her self-esteem’s a little down and he’s helping her feel desirable again. As he later puts it,

“I want all of this. I want the whispered late-night conversations. And the holidays where we have to touch each other quietly in a bed that’s too small so we don’t become one of your grandfather’s jokes at the table.”

…

“I want to wake you up in the middle of the night to talk. And I want to wake up and see your bedhead and drink coffee together when we’re too tired to talk. It won’t always be a party, but it will always be us”

He won’t win any awards with that speech, but it hits all the important points.

Speakeasy’s required reading for fans of Bowen and anyone else who likes substantive contemporary romance.

Even though usually the main main character of an mf romance is the female lead, Anything for You is Connor O’Rourke’s story. Jessica Dunn is important, but we start and end with Connor and it was kind of fun that way.

Connor’s been in love with Jess ever since she rescued him from being mauled to death by her family’s mean pit bull when they were both twelve. But she was never interested in him back when they were kids, too busy handling her own tough life to really consider him.

And Jess has had a very tough life. She grew up in a trailer park with criminally neglectful and drunk parents and a younger brother (Davey) born with fetal alcohol syndrome. She has taken care of him basically all his life. And it hasn’t been easy. She felt the need to seek external protection for him from the boys in her high school, and her approach to this was to sleep with them to earn a favor. So she became known as the Manningsport town slut, all while being probably the most decent, hard-working person in the whole town and not remotely interested in “a good time.”

Connor, on the other hand, hasn’t had it too bad. Although he’s never been close to his jerk of a father, said father’s a well-off lawyer and Connor’s been pretty comfortable. He has disappointed his parents by going to culinary school, however. But then he and his twin sister received an inheritance that allowed them to open a new restaurant in Manningsport so he moved back.

When the book opens, they’re both thirty-two and Connor is proposing. Jess doesn’t take it seriously, calling him a “doofus” and “big guy” in the process of saying no. They’ve been secretly dating on-and-off for ten years and he’s done. He wants their relationship to be real and in the open. But the way Jess sees it, she has responsibility for her brother, who hates Connor. Because Davey blames Connor for the death of Chico, the dog that mauled him, and Davey loved Chico more than anything. So, since Davey comes first, that’s that.

Although the story starts there, in the next chapter, we drop straight back to the mauling incident twenty years earlier. Then we see the first time Connor and Jess hang out and hook up, at a wine class he’s teaching at the culinary institute (her boss at her waitressing job sent her). He ruins it by saying something stupid and hurtful. She says goodbye and that’s that for a while. The book proceeds by telling the rest of their history before jumping back to after the proposal.

As usual for a Higgins book, there’s a lot going on in both Connor’s and Jess’s lives. Jess has worked so hard and is living in a rental house working toward buying her own. She’s managed to go to college and even get a master’s in marketing. And now she works at the Blue Heron winery in Manningsport and is well-loved there. Connor’s busy with his restaurant and attempting to get a brewery started up. Then he finally comes up with an idea to win Davey over, which he believes will change everything for him and Jess. It’s not a bad idea, even if it doesn’t go quite as planned.

The book’s loaded with humor that doesn’t come at anyone’s expense and a fair amount of sexy times. Higgins is a master of details that appear to effortlessly pull the reader into the story. Her dialogue is crisp and entertaining. There are numerous interesting side characters—most notably Colleen, Connor’s twin, and a new hire at the winery.

Overall, it’s a great read that any fan of a good romance will enjoy.