I said in an earlier review that I’d definitely try Kleypas again. I did, and I’m glad. This time I picked up my preferred subgenre, contemporary.

Alex Nolan is an unhappy man. He’s a drunk, actually. He comes from drunk parents and although his two brothers seem to have done okay, he’s drowning his sorrows. It’s not entirely clear why he’s unhappy, though. He had a crappy first marriage, which is breaking up, so that’s part of it. But it seems like he’s just fundamentally unhappy. Maybe it’s who he is. He definitely thinks so.

Enter two people: a ghost and Zoë Hoffman.

The ghost somehow (it’s never quite clear how) gets attached to Alex and can’t travel too far from him, which drives them both crazy. The ghost has only vague recollections of his life, although it’s tied to the house that Alex’s brothers live in. But more importantly, Alex and the ghost need to figure out what’s tying them together, and how they can break that.

Zoë, on the other hand, is just a nice, sweet girl whose ex-husband shocked her by coming out as gay. She’s no match for Alex’s dark moods and when they first meet by chance at Alex’s brothers’ house, they’re both drawn to each other but Alex is total douchebag to her. Plus, she has problems of her own—her beloved grandmother has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and is already showing signs of fast decline. Zoë is going to have to take care of her from now on, which she plans to do by renovating a house near where she works, but the house seriously needs fixing up. Alex is recommended to her by her cousin because he’s an expected carpenter/builder-type. So enter Alex into her life.

Something about Alex pulls Zoë to him. Probably that ridiculous thing a lot of women have about fixing broken men, but in this case Alex makes the choice to fix himself and acts on it. Zoë loves to cook and plies Alex with baked goods and breakfast and eventually he starts to come around as a more decent person. But he’s still convinced he’s nothing but bad news for Zoë and warns her to stay away, despite the simmering attraction between them.

Fortunately for us, Alex’s ghostly friend helps him to see things in a slightly new light, even if it’s a painful process for both of them. Alex gets quite involved in helping the ghost solve his mystery, which ends up being tied compellingly to Zoë and her grandmother. When he and Zoë finally give in, it’s such a relief, but it also involves wholly believable transformations for both of them.

Steadfast is a gritty second-chance-at-love story. We first met Jude in Bittersweet as the former junkie trying to make good. He had just been released from prison and then detox and worked on the Shipley farm as a way to get established again and stay clean. In that book, he comes across as a decent, if troubled, guy.

In this book, Jude has nowhere else to go as the harvesting season has ended, and he has returned to his home town, Colebury, to live with his father and work as a mechanic at his garage. Jude assumes that the love of his life, Sophie, is still in town. Of course he’s decided to stay away from her because he doesn’t want to drag her down with him. He’s genuinely trying to stay clean, fighting the cravings that haunt him every day.

Sophie is still in town. She’s finishing up her Bachelor’s degree and working as an intern in a social work position, which she’s hoping will turn into a full-time job after she graduates, even though she doesn’t really expect it to happen because her fellow intern is finishing his Master’s. Then there’s her mess of a family. Her father is a bonafide asshole, the local police chief who can’t do any wrong. And her mom has been basically nonfunctional since the accident that killed Sophie’s brother.

The accident is even more significant because her brother was in Jude’s car when he was killed. And although Sophie and Jude had been very much together when it happened, he went straight to jail and then prison and she hasn’t spoken to him in the three-plus years he’s been gone. He refused her letters in prison and she hasn’t even been able to learn anything about him. Her brother was a douche, but she’s still eaten up with desire to know what happened that night. What happened to her brother—and what happened to Jude.

So, with that setup, a lot happens. As I mentioned, this is a gritty book—we feel Jude’s suffering as he tries to resist the urge to find more junk to take himself away from everything that’s shit. Because on top of everything he’s dealing with, there’s some fallout from the night of the accident. Even though he doesn’t remember himself what happened, there were some drugs involved and somebody’s looking for them. Sophie is dealing with taking care of her parents, cooking dinner every night for her hateful and ungrateful father and her practically comatose mother.

But of course, when they run into each other, sparks fly yet again. After one of his NA meetings at the church, Jude ends up getting talked into volunteering to help at a community dinner by the priest, only to find that Sophie is a regular volunteer there.

After a while, they can’t keep away from each other even though they both try. She is trying to not be in love with him because he really hurt her, and he naturally thinks the best thing for her is for him to not be in her life. If her father finds out that she’s seeing Jude at all, she’s in real danger. We don’t see her father’s true nature until the end of the book, but we sense it throughout. That combined with the threat looming over Jude’s head means constant tension.

The book is immensely satisfying. There are enjoyable flashbacks to when Sophie and Jude were first together, when they were teenagers. And there are also a couple of good twists that I didn’t really see coming (at least not at first). Even though there’s plenty of sex, the sexual tension is there throughout (just as you’d expect from Bowen). Although it’s the second in the series, there’s no reason you need to have read Bittersweet first (except for the fact that it’s awesome).

Although I first came to Sarina Bowen through her Ivy Years series, which I loved, the True North series made her my favorite romance author. She draws you into her characters’ hearts like nobody else.

Bittersweet is set in rural Vermont and features Audrey and Griff, who had a couple of college hookups that never went any further. Now they’re in their mid-twenties and have moved beyond college frivolity. Griff’s father recently died and now he’s effectively running the family farm. Fortunately, he has a great family and a couple employees who help keep the well-oiled machine going. Audrey is a college dropout who keeps screwing up, but she’s got herself together and is really, really trying this time—especially after successfully completing culinary school and even excelling there. Unsurprisingly, what she really wants is to be a chef, but it’s not the kind of job you just walk into. For the time being, she works for a Boston restaurant conglomerate, which sends her to the wilds of Vermont to get produce and other organic products.

So they’re both shocked when Audrey ends up on Griff’s farm trying to buy his apples and cider. They’re not exactly enthusiastic about the little reunion. Griff just wants Audrey to go away because he’s assumed she’s the same girl she was at eighteen. Audrey’s a little more generous with Griff, despite the fact that he’s become a grumpy bear, but she needs him to agree to sell his ciders to her. Griff mocks her job (and Audrey herself): “So his new plan is to send a hot sorority girl in a halter top and short skirt to dazzle the poor hicks who grow his food.”

Still, when things go a little haywire with her rental car, she ends up hanging around a bit and even making a moan-worthy barbecue sauce for Griff’s whole family. And despite the mild animosity between them, it isn’t long before the reminder of why exactly they’d hooked up five years earlier rears its head and they get it on in an outside shower. “Then she stopped, her chin tilting upward. Her expression was a dare. And I always took a dare.” It’s mighty hot.

After that the chemistry is off the charts. Audrey sticks around to continue her job and they manage to meet up regularly. Both Griff and Audrey are complicated and interesting characters. Audrey has a strained relationship with her difficult and unusual mother who’s constantly disappointed by Audrey’s life choices. And Griff has the weight of the world on his shoulders with his responsibilities. It’s a lot of fun to watch them grow—Audrey finally comes into her own, getting past her previous failures, and Griff remembers how to chill out and enjoy life a bit. The other characters are also wonderful, all different and incredibly well-drawn. It’s pretty obvious who will be featured in the next books in the series, because you already want their stories. Jude the recovering addict, Zach the recovering cult member, and Griff’s family are all great.

Now, not everyone might appreciate the detail that Bowen goes into with the cooking and farming, but if you like reading food porn, you’ll be getting off regularly with this book. Both meals and the organic produce feature heavily as they are Audrey and Griff’s passions (well, a couple of them). A lot of time is spent in the minutiae of farm life and cooking, much of it going right over my head (I never cook and don’t know crap about farms), but what I did grasp was actually quite interesting. You can’t fault the setting building. You also can’t help but effortlessly pick up some knowledge, if you are a city person and enjoy learning about things.

I highly recommended both the book itself and the audiobook from Downpour.