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You know those authors where when you read one book you immediately order their entire back catalogue? Kristan Higgins is one of those for me. I picked up one of her novels on a whim in a local shop when I was visiting my family over Christmas and devoured it in about a day. I then hightailed it to my library’s eBook website and checked out all of her works in quick succession.
Somebody to Love’s protagonist is Parker Welles, an heiress to a fortune that disappears at the beginning of the book due to her father’s mismanagement. Instead of spending her summer how she planned, she instead finds herself heading up to Gideon’s Cove, Maine to work on her sole inheritance – a ramshackle cottage that needs a little more than TLC. Desperate to start over for her and her son – the scandal around her father is rather public and rather vicious – she dedicates herself to making the house habitable.
The one kink in her plan is James Cahill, her father’s second-in-command who has been ordered to keep an eye on her. Parker is not, shall we say, fond of James. Despite the fact that he knows his way around a toolbox and ends up being incredibly helpful since Parker has no idea what she’s really doing, there is a chill in the air for a bit between the two.
But the chill, of course, thaws and Parker and James find their happily ever after in the end.
I was utterly charmed by this story. Full of Higgins’s trademark humor and vivid characters, I’d recommend this story to anyone looking for a quality romance. Higgins famously does not describe any sex scenes in detail, preferring instead to “close the door”. I’ve read interviews where Higgins says she does that intentionally, and is pleased that multiple generations of women in the same family report being able to read her books together. As someone who likes to share books with my mother – who does not care for too much detail in the bedroom – I like that about Higgins’s books.
I’d recommend this book with a nice glass of lemonade – it’ll help cool down the tension between Parker and James as well as help with the physical labor you’re reading about!
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Further Reading:
- Trips to coastal Maine: If you’re like me and you wanted to book a quick trip after reading this, start here.
- Index of books set in Maine: From the Maine Writer’s Library, here’s an index of all the books they know about written in fictional or real Maine
- Romance novels featuring construction workers: The idea of men or women building things get you going? Check out this list!
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I received this book from my library’s eBook service.