Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas

Pages - 308

Published by Piatkus on February 28th 2012

Book kindly sent by publisher for an honest review

When Lucy Marinn was seven years old, three things happened:Her little sister Alice got sick, she was assigned her first science fair project, and she found out that magic existed. More specifically that she had the power to create magic. And for the rest of her life, Lucy would be aware that the distance between ordinary and extraordinary was only a step, a breath, a heartbeat away. 

Goodreads Summary

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington. She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal: her fiance Kevin has left her. His new lover is Lucy's own sister. Lucy's bitterness over being dumped is multiplied by the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life. Facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's parents, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy and hopefully loosen her up and get her over her anger. Complications ensue when Sam and Lucy begin to fall in love, Kevin has second thoughts, and Lucy discovers that the new relationship in her life began under false pretenses. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life--even after being broken--can be made into something new and beautiful.

*******

If I could live in Friday Harbour, I most definitely would as I want all the characters in this series to be my friends. They are such  a beautiful group of people. I took this book on holiday with me and read it in one day - an ideal beach read where you get lost in a world full of Southern grace and charm.

This book is sprinkled with a frosting of magical realism, very subtle but enough to give you hope that magic really does exist out there. Lisa Kleypas can happily sit on my bookshelves alongside Sarah Addison Allen.

The author brought Friday Harbour alive for me, I could almost smell and taste how wonderful it was. The characters are charming and I defy you not to be attracted to the Nolan brothers. Don't worry ladies, there are three of them to choose from - no fighting. The Nolan brothers come from a really bad background - all of them suffered in silence as their family fell apart while their parents drunk themselves to death. Followed by the accidental death of their sister, Victoria, the brothers have to come together to look after their orphaned niece and each book follows their desperate attempts to escape romantic encounters only to discover that love  really does makes the world go round. 

This book follows Sam as he helps out a friend by dating his ex. Only Sam doesn't expect to fall for Lucy and it soon becomes apparent that their is something rather special about this couple, they are both so warm and wonderful together and sparks really do fly; I found myself sighing with contentment. Just beautiful. 

By the penultimate chapter, I was in tears, it was just so romantic how it ended. 

This series has definitely become a firm favourite with me; one I will return to again and again  in the future. I really hope someone picks it up and turns it into a TV series as I would definitely watch it.