From the blurb:One step forward. Two steps back. The Tufts scholarship that put Nora Stuart on the path to becoming a Boston medical specialist was a step forward. Being hit by a car and then overhearing her boyfriend hit on another doctor when she thought she was dying? Two major steps back.
Injured in more ways than one, Nora feels her carefully built life cracking at the edges. There's only one place to land: home. But the tiny Maine community she left fifteen years ago doesn't necessarily want her. At every turn, someone holds the prodigal daughter of Scupper Island responsible for small-town drama and big-time disappointments.
With a tough islander mother who's always been distant and a wild-child sister in jail, unable to raise her daughter--a withdrawn teen as eager to ditch the island as Nora once was--Nora has her work cut out for her if she's going to take what might be her last chance to mend the family.
But as some relationships crumble around her, others unexpectedly strengthen.
Balancing loss and opportunity, a dark event from her past with hope for the future, Nora will discover that tackling old pain makes room for promise...and the chance to begin again.
Heather's rating:
I'm a huge, HUGE Kristan Higgins fan, and I think she does that middle ground between women's fiction and romance like no other. Now That You Mention It was another wonderful, nuanced, lovely book in that style, and a great offering for long-time Higgins devotees and newcomers alike.
I connected with Now That You Mention It immediately. First of all, it gives MAJOR props to my alma mater, Tufts University (what, what!) and takes place in a little island off the coast of Maine, where I spent all of my childhood summers. Also, the MC in the book is a doctor, and although I'm a dentist and not a physician, the hospital setting and the medical terminology made me feel right at home.
The book was exactly what I'd expect from this author: we get unique, complex family dynamics, which change and grow over time; and we also get a slow-burning, low-key romance that is important to the story but not the main focus.
Like all Higgins MCs, the main character here was easy to relate to. I adored her and her complexity, even though I thought she was too forgiving and lenient with her family.
My only issue with the story was that it was a little more depressing than I was expecting. Especially in the first half, I had to push myself to keep reading at times because people kept treating our MC like crap, and I wanted her to extricate herself from her messed up situation. There was more pain more quickly than I was expecting, and that took me awhile to work through. However, once things starting coming alone, I found myself completely enthralled.
If you love Higgins' style, don't hesitate to pick this book up. It isn't all sunshine and roses, but it is a very satisfying story that shows the complexity of family dynamics and how you can, sometimes, go home again.
*Copy provided in exchange for an honest review*
Enjoy, friends!!
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