The Next Always by Nora Roberts, Hachette, $29.99
Book one of the Inn at Boonsboro Trilogy has all the sizzling ingredients of a bubbling slice served at the local pizzeria, where the long-legged Montgomery brothers — Ryder, Owen and Beckett — get their strong calloused hands round a bottle of beer, after a day gently smoothing “her” curves and laying “her” floors …
This is bestselling American novelist Nora Roberts at her slow and saucy best, as she allegorises the renovation of historic haunted inn Boonsboro (which Roberts fans will know really does exist and Roberts refurbed), comparing it to the southern single siblings (men do the plumbing and take care of their women) romantic pursuits.
Beckett likes to browse the paperbacks at the bookstore run by old school pal Clare, an Iraqi widow and mother to three boisterous Power Ranging meatball hurling (seriously!) sons.
This book follows patient Beckett’s pent-up courtship of Clare over kiddy sleepovers and sick days in bed with their mom.
In the author’s finely tuned balance of homespun mouth-watering attention to detail — Clare quartering olive oil coated potatoes for the roast, all the while longing to kiss her man — she links bolts of fabric and bolts of passion.
Never did exposed brick evoke so much jealousy or nail guns so much pulling power!
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