Summer on the Island by Brenda Novak

Three women head to a small island to try and hit the reset button on their lives. Marlow Madsen is recovering from losing her larger-than-life father, Senator John "Tiller" Madsen. It is her family beach house, Seaclusion, that they are visiting and her mother who is going through a health scare. Her friend Claire Fernandez not only lost her house amidst other drama and Aida has just gone through a divorce, represented by Marlow.  

Reese and Walker Cantwell grew up with Marlow since their mother was the housekeeper at Seaclusion. Reese was younger but he has grown up into the 22-year-old tennis pro at the local club. Walker, Marlow's particular playmate, had moved to Atlanta but has returned to be the chief of police.

There is a lot going on in this book. A LOT. It means that nothing is really ever developed as well as Novak usually does. Definitely a beach read. 

Three stars

This book came out April 5, 2022

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own 

One Perfect Summer by Brenda Novak

23andMe is uncovering a lot of long-held family secrets. Serenity, Reagan, and Lorelei have discovered they are half-sisters and have decided to spend a weekend together in Lake Tahoe to try and get to know each other. Serenity is dealing with the fall-out of her eight-year marriage ending; Reagan had and affair with a married man; Lorelei's husband has just admitted that he cheated on her with her best friend. The three ladies spend enough time together to realize they need more than just the weekend they originally planned for.
I liked the depiction of Lucy, Lorelei's four-year-old, in this book. She wasn't a plot moppet at all. However, I did not like the fact that all of the characters felt a little flat. This is a long book but there was So Much going on that none of it felt like the kind of in-depth story that Novak can do. I actually would have liked it much better had every romantic interest been edited out and the ladies had just had time to grow from the bonds with each other.

Three stars
This book comes out April 7th
ARC kindly provided by Harlequin Mira and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Right Where We Belong by Brenda Novak

Savanna Gray didn't know her husband was a serial rapist. But once the town found out, she became a pariah. So she packed up her two kids and took them to the house she had inherited from her parents. She's never been there, it's barely livable, but she's going to go anyway. Thank goodness the guy next door is willing to help her out.
Gavin Turner just wants to work on his music and live his life. He'd rather his ex-girlfriend were a little farther away but she seems happy in her new relationship. The new neighbor is hot so he doesn't mind helping her out.
The two almost immediately start hooking up which then leads into True Love and Happily Ever After.
Novak does a great job of portraying people in hard circumstances. Savanna isn't the only one with emotional scars. I got a good idea of why she and Gavin got together but couldn't really see them working out longer than that. I didn't see the ties. And I really disliked the "crazy ex-girlfriend" storyline.

Three stars
This book comes out October 31

Hello Again by Brenda Novak

Evelyn Talbot is still working in Alaska trying to decipher the secrets of some of the world's worst serial killers. In this story, she is concentrating on Lyman Bishop, a man who liked to lobotomize his victims. But was he wrongly convicted?
At the same time, she's trying to figure out whether the murder of a woman from her high school class was perpetrated by Evelyn's high school sweetheart, the one who murdered three of her friends and tried to murder Evelyn.
I liked the short story that started this book, the first book a little less, and this one even a little less. The overall arc for Evelyn is just so slow moving. She's more or less the same woman we met in the short story. You'd think that events would change her more. I think people who enjoyed the first book will like this one but this may be the end of the road on the series for me.

Three stars
This book comes out October 4
Follows Her Darkest Nightmare

Until You Loved Me by Brenda Novak

I read the first chapter of this book at the end of No One but You and was immediately entranced. Yes, this is a surprise baby BUT it's a result of a failed condom (which happens, at least they were being responsible) and she responsibly lets him know about the baby... as soon as she figures out his last name.
I liked watching these two fall in love. Ellie's last relationship ended when when walked  in on her coworker/fiance with his (male) best friend... who is also a coworker. The biggest problem I had with the book was how these two were portrayed. Yay for homosexual representation. Boo for making them both so thoroughly unlikable (aka The Bad Guys.)
Yay also for the representation of Hudson King, a football player who seems like a generally  nice guy, doesn't sleep around. He's got some demons-- like being left in a bush as a baby and now being blackmailed. His drama (and dramatics) were a bit overwhelming but Ellie handles it all like an adult which was incredibly refreshing.

Four stars
This book comes out July 25
Follows No One But You

No One but You by Brenda Novak

Novak continues the trend of taking some truly difficult characters, in this case a former prisoner (accused of a double murder) and an abused woman, and having them find themselves and each other.
Dawson Reed just wants to fix up his adoptive parents (the double murder) farm and live his life so that he can win custody of his sister.
Sadie Harris just wants to make enough money to feed and house herself and her son so that she can win custody from her sadistic husband. The husband who seems like a nice guy to everyone else. The guy who is a cop... Oh.
This poor book suffered in  part because I read the beginning of Until you Loved Me at the end of this story, realized I had the ARC and read it right after this. It is such an awesome story with characters I connected with so much more easily than these two. I also got a little overwhelmed with everything that was happening. I don't think that regular Novak readers will be disappointed, I just don't think you should read these two in quick succession.

Three Stars
This book comes out May 30
Follows Finding Our Forever
Followed by Until You Loved Me

Finding Our Forever by Brenda Novak

Cora Kelly is trying to find some closure in her life. She wants to know more about her birth mother and thinks that working at the boarding school her mother runs. But Aiyana Turner wasn't the one to hire Cora, instead, it was one of her 8 (!) adoptive sons, Elijah. A man who Cora is desperately attracted to.
Eli has some past issues of his own. He might have been adopted by Aiyana but the beginning of his life wasn't exactly tea and roses. We don't actually get a full description of what his life was like which was sort of disappointing. There are glimpses of his current relationship with his birth mother but no resolution.
This is a wonderful Novak story but suffers from a few things -- this is a world building story so we don't get as much time with the main characters, we get to see a lot of the physical relationship with Cora and Eli (why are so many authors into sex in public places right now? Is this the new thing in romance novels?) but not as much of the emotional, there is a nice use of condoms in the beginning and some discussion of alternate means of birth control but no discussion of STIs as if condoms were only used as a mean to prevent pregnancy but nothing else.
This isn't one of Novak's super-emotional stories that rips your hearts and guts out but I still think regular readers will enjoy.

Three stars
This book comes out March 21
Followed by No One But You

Her Darkest Nightmare by Brenda Novak

Oh man. Novak is good at the feels. Very good. And when she turns her mind to a thriller. Oofta.
I read the prequel to this book and it was bad enough. I was going to say "scary" but this is something deeper.
Doctor Evelyn Talbot has opened up a unique facility in the Alaskan wilderness, a house for psychopaths, killers who she and her team study (Hanover House). There are supposedly 250 inmates (which has to be twice the number of a lot of small Alaskan towns). Dr. Talbot is no stranger to killer psychopaths since she was almost killed by one when she was 16. Now she's trying to figure out why they do what they do so that she can prevent more murders in the future.
Sergeant Amarok is seven years Evelyn's junior, but that doesn't mean that he's not wildly attracted to her. And he knows the trauma of her past and is ridiculously romantic in being patient with her. They went their separate ways after the first novella because Evelyn has issues but a massive snow storm in the beginning of the book means that he's given a second chance when Evelyn's car goes out and she's forced to stay at his house for the night. But that same night, there's a murder. Is an escapee from the Hanover House or something more sinister.
The beginning of the book was so great plotting-wise and world building. We get to meet so many of the characters and start the suspense. But the middle started to get a little whirligig-ish and by the end, there was just Too Much going on. This was a solid four star book most of the way through but the last third was definitely a two.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out August 23

Follows Hanover House (novella)
Followed by Hello Again

The Secrets She Kept by Brenda Novak

Keith gets his story in the follow-up to The Secrets She Kept. It's five years after the first book in this series and he's moved to Los Angeles, cleaned himself up, and runs a super-successful business. When he gets the call that his mother, Josephine, has committed suicide, he's flabbergasted. Josephine just wasn't the kind of person to have done something like that. She was too self-involved for one thing.
When he gets back to the island, he's confronted with his past. Not only with his past drug habits but the people he harmed while using them. Especially Nancy.
It's been a long time but Nancy was hoping to have lost a bit more weight before Keith finally returned. He's always been the one who got away. And I didn't really love that about her story line. She was so obsessed with her weight and it never really got resolved. I guess that's more true-to-life but it was repeated so many times that I thought it would play more into the ending.
This was a really circuitous book, never really sticking to one plot point without wandering all over before it got to the end but I think regular Novak readers will enjoy it.

Three stars
This book comes out July 26

Discovering You by Brenda Novak

Regular Novak readers are going to love this book. LOVE it. It's got the drama and the feels and just that... Novak-ness that regular readers have come to expect. Will new readers to the Whiskey Creek series enjoy this book as much? I think so. While we do get some characters from previous books, it makes sense when they come in (no shoehorning here.)
India Sommers has lost her husband in a horrifying manner. And she blames herself for what happened. It all stems from her love of bad boys. So when she comes up on Rod Amos soon after he beats a guy (the guy really had it coming), she feels the attraction, but doesn't want to act on it. Although, to be honest, she doesn't really hold out all that long. She feels like she can probably be in and out of a very physical relationship before her daughter comes back from visiting her grandparents.
Rod is a complicated guy who is a couple of sort-of-in-but-not-really-and-I'm-sure-the-girl-understands-that relationships when he meets India. He knows that he's attracted to her and he knows that she's attracted to him. So why won't she just get together with him already?
Well, when her past comes a'calling, it's Rod that India turns to for help.
I didn't love the last quarter of this book so it took it down a little but it's still three and a half stars for me.

This book comes out May 24
Follows A Winter Wedding

A Winter Wedding by Brenda Novak

Oof. I'm so glad I got to read this book. The last two in the series were hard reads (because Brenda Novak tends to write outside the lines of your stereotypical romance stories, maybe not quite real life but definitely some harder emotions than a lot of romance novels) and this one was no less hard but maybe just a little less on the unending "feels" which made for a nice change-up in the Whiskey Creek series.
In this book, Kyle Houseman finally gets his HEA. And it's not with the quiet homebody that he always thought he wanted. Instead, his life is invaded by Lourdes Bennett, a country star whose star is somewhat on the wane.
Neither actually wants to get involved with the other. For one thing, Lourdes is engaged to the man (her manager) she's been dating for three years. Even if he has been distant lately and more concerned about an up-and-comer than Lourdes.
And Kyle isn't interested in someone who's almost a decade younger than he is. Especially someone who certainly isn't going to want to live in Whiskey Creek, a place he can't imagine leaving. Besides, he only seems to attract crazy women (e.g. ex-wife, Noelle who can't seem to leave him be) and is still in love with his step-brother's wife, Olivia (even more complicated, she's Noelle's sister).
Like a lot of the books in this series, there is a lot of build-up to what seems to be a fairly fast ending which can be a bit disconcerting. But I'm really glad I've stuck with the series because it's one that doesn't fall into the stereotypical romance lines (which, by the way are most of my favorite books). I really, really hope that we're going to get a Baxter story. There aren't really any other friends in their group left and I'd hate to see him be left out.

Followed by Discovering You

Hanover House by Brenda Novak

A perfect book for a spooky fall, Hanover House sets up a new series with psychiatrist Evelyn Talbot as the main character. When she was sixteen, her boyfriend murdered three of her friends and nearly succeeded in slitting her throat as well. Since then, she's studied serial murderers, trying to figure out what makes them tick. Her baby is a project called Hanover House, a prison being built in a small Alaskan town, not far from Fairbanks.
But the locals aren't exactly excited to have a bunch of sociopaths shipped up from the Lower 48. In fact, someone's been messing around in her building, writing nasty words on the wall and tearing down some of the construction.
Local law enforcement, Sergeant Benjamin Murphy, colloquially known as Sergeant Amarok, calls the good doctor to come up and see the damage.
Because this is such a short story, I don't want to give too much away. This is the start of a nice departure from a more heavily romance book to a bit more suspense for Novak. Her books have never been "comfort reading" for me so this fits in nicely to my perception. I just hope that Jasper (the ex who escaped from prison almost as soon as he was put in) is either sidelined for awhile , becomes more a background noise, or is dealt with quickly. He had way too much action and if that continues, it will get old fast.
WARNING: I didn't read the description carefully. This book is a prequel. It is short.

Followed by Her Darkest Nightmare

This Heart of Mine by Brenda Novak

Brenda Novak is a straight three-mile author for me with occasional forays into the four-mile category (A random note, I give very few five-mile reviews so three is darn good). Part of the reason that I keep reading her books is that her stories make me so darn uncomfortable, often tackling hard subjects. In this book, it's the return of a girl who got knocked up as a teenager and was accused of running down the girl her ex dumped her for. 17 years later, she's just getting out of prison and returning home to Whiskey Creek to live with the obese, hoarder mother who has just gotten worse since she's been gone. No, Phoenix Fuller is not your ordinary romance heroine.

The story opens with Phoenix meeting her now sixteen-year-old son along with his father, Riley Stinson. Riley is understandably cautious. After all, this is a woman who was convicted of killing someone.
Phoenix keeps reminding herself that she was wrongly accused (do we need to know this so many times?) but that doesn't seem to help her confidence levels much. After all, it's not like she has a lot to live for.  And going to prison didn't help.
But somehow, Riley and Phoenix work together to find a way to integrate themselves back into a family, complete with an HEA.

She was not a very likable character. Do we really want a martyr who has forgiven all her enemies as a heroine? Most of the book was spent propping up her self-esteem and she wasn't even the one to set up a confrontation with Penny, Riley had to set it all up for her. And then to have no consequences for Penny... It's hard. But, actually, now that I think of it, very consistent with Novak's writing style.
I also wasn't really sure of the romance between these two. It was a little tepid and I didn't really see the attraction between Riley and Phoenix. The plus side was that there was no insta-love. The relationship between Phoenix and her son was perfect though

Heart of Christmas by Brenda Novak

Image linked from Goodreads

Eve isn’t the kind of woman to wake up next to a stranger, and yet, on the morning of her 35th birthday, she does just that. It’s embarrassing enough but she has the complicating factors of Noelle Arnold (vindictive gossip) dropping them off at her house and the man staying at her B&B. Rex isn’t in a place to create relationships. He really just wanted a night to forget about his problems. But Whiskey Creek seems like a place that he can not only hide out from his own problems, but also protect Scarlet Jones, a photographer with a stalker. I liked Eve. She was aware of the fact that her parents might hear about her escapade, and rather than create some kooky plan to prevent them ever hearing it, she ‘fesses up immediately. Rex... was a little more mysterious and hard to nail down. He was a nice enough guy "with a past" One minor comment. I liked the name Brent. I wish that had been his real name and Rex the alias. It makes more sense in my head. But I did have some larger issues

I like Novak's books so much better when everything isn't SUCH A BIG DEAL. And how many times could she point out that Cheyenne's baby was her husband's brother but she wasn't going to tell and only four people knew? Good freaking lord. Maybe that will change before the book goes into print. I certainly hope so. And what was up with the Scarlet Jones subplot? Was it there to get Rex back to his house? It made no sense for this long build up and then nothing actually happens.

Come Home to Me by Brenda Novak

Oh the feels. The many, many feels. Brenda Novak does not always craft a... comfortable story,

Image linked from Goodreads

but she always manages to evoke strong emotions in her readers. At least me. Lots of spoilers in this review so I'm going to hide most of it.

SECRET BABY! Maybe two secret babies. This is such an overused storyline in the Harlequin romance novels and it irked me for much of the first part of the story. But... these are damaged people that Novak is writing about. They're not some white-bread secretary who only hides the baby because of some twisted logic. Okay, yes, Presley should have told Aaron. But, by the stated parameters of their relationship, they were only hooking up. And she was taking a lot of drugs at that point so... who knows. Then there's the burden of the relationship she had after she ran away to Arizona. It sounds... dark. Very dark.
The whole plotline with Cheyenne wanting to artificially inseminate herself with her brother-in-law's sperm also felt like it should be irksome. But, it somehow wasn't that bad once we found out that Dylan was also hiding things in their marriage. Again, coming from the same families as Presley and Aaron, these are two people who love each other so much but have never been around a good marriage to see how burdens shared can be burdens lightened (oh, god, that's so twee but yet so true.) I spent the second half of the book with my fingers crossed that they would just talk to each other and trusting in Novak to bring all of the tangled webs to a happy conclusion.

Take Me Home for Christmas by Brenda Novak

As always, Brenda Novak writes a fiercely compelling book with hard-to-deal-with themes.
I've been wondering about Sophia's story. She was the golden girl of high school, the bitch who treated everyone with disdain, including Ted Dixon. But in past books, she's been working her way back into the group of friends Novak has been centering her books around.

And that's what I didn't love in this book. She's obviously been abused and is trying to make amends but everyone seems to still blame her for not only what she did oh so many years ago but also for the pyramid scheme her husband set up.

Now, it seems that her husband, Bill, a real jerk who has defrauded most of the town with a Ponzi scheme, had died and Sophia's left holding the bag. She has no working skills and a daughter to care for.
The only person semi willing to help is Ted, a guy she unceremoniously dumped in high school. He, and his mother both still hold a grudge. Besides, he's dating another girl in their group of friends. But that doesn't mean that he is completely heartless. He gives Sophia a job as his housekeeper (did I mention that he's come up in the world?).
A familiar romance trope with a uniquely Novak-spin. The characters are fully-developed and evoke a feeling of camaraderie in the reader. It can be heartbreaking but definitely worth the read.

Home to Whiskey Creek by Brenda Novak

Image from Goodreads

Oh Brenda Novak, you just keep ripping out my heart with these fantastic characters with major, major flaws and just making me fall in love with them.
We know Noah Rackham from earlier Whiskey Creek novels. He's a handsome biker (mountain, not motor) whose best friend, Baxter, is completely in love with. Unforunately for Baxter (who, dear God in heaven, please let us read his story soon, he needs a good man), Noah is straight, a huge player in fact,... and about to meet his own match.
The story opens when he hears a voice coming from the same mine where his fraternal twin died in high school. It's Adelaide Davies who has been beaten, threatened, and tossed down a mine (I accidentally typed "well" twice. Which would have been a great story, but not this one). From the blurb on the back, you can probably figure out the secret that Addy is keeping but it might be considered a spoiler by some, so I'll hide it.

In high school, Addy was raped by five boys on the baseball team, including Noah's brother who died when Addy finally was able to fight back. Now she's involved with his brother? Whose parents don't want to believe anything bad about their beloved, long-dead son? Um, issues!

Suffice it to say, it's a secret that is long reaching and big enough to divide the town.
She didn't want to come back to this place, the place where her life changed overnight, but her grandmother is sick and Addy needs to be with her, even if it means stirring up sleeping dogs. But not if it means coming into contact with Noah, the boy who she obsessed over for years. But she can't seem to stay away...
Good condom use in this story. Love Novak for that and deserves a bump up to four-and-a-half stars.