Rowena's review of The Next Always by Nora Roberts

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Rowena's review of The Next Always by Nora Roberts.

Hero: Beckett Montgomery
Heroine: Claire Brewster

"America's favorite writer" (The New Yorker) begins an all-new trilogy-inspired by the inn she owns and the town she loves.

The historic hotel in BoonsBoro, Maryland, has endured war and peace, changing hands, even rumored hauntings. Now it's getting a major facelift from the Montgomery brothers and their eccentric mother. As the architect of the family, Beckett's social life consists mostly of talking shop over pizza and beer. But there's another project he's got his eye on: the girl he's been waiting to kiss since he was fifteen...

I've been looking forward to this release since I found out about it and when I went to Holly's house, this was the only book that I was looking forward to reading. I adored the Bridal Quartet a lot so I thought I would enjoy this one just as much but while the overall story was good, I didn't quite love this book as much as I hoped I would.

This book follows Claire Brewster and Beckett Montgomery find their way to their happy ending. For Claire, it was her second shot at love since she married young and lost her husband to the war. For Beck, it was for the first time and with his childhood crush. Beckett had always liked Claire, ever since she was fifteen years old but he never got to do anything about it because the timing was always off and then she went off and got married, had kids and she was always out of his reach. When she moves back home after her husband dies, Beckett is baffled as all get out that he still gets all tongue twisted and shy around Claire, like he was a bumbling boy of thirteen. He could talk to any woman on the planet and be cool and confident but not with Claire. He's had a crush on Claire for as long as he could remember and everyone and their Mom knows, except for Claire.

The romance between Beckett and Claire was like a tall glass of lemonade on a lazy summer day. It was slow, steady and simmered right beneath the surface for most of the beginning of the book. Roberts does a great job of drawing their characters out and making their romance feel real.

Claire has her hands full with her three boys and her business. She's doing it all on her own with the help of her friends and parents (both sets of grandparents), she's doing a pretty bang up job trying to juggle all of the roles she's playing but sometimes it got to be a bit much. It was hard at times to take Claire because she was such a control freak about every little thing where her boys were concerned. She didn't want to lean on anyone too much (even when they were doing the offering) and so she made things a lot harder for herself when she didn't have to.

I will say that I adored the way that Beckett bonded with Claire's boys. He was more than just the guy that was dating their Mom. He was their friend as well and seeing the bond between Beckett and each boy form and then strengthen over the course of the book was something that I enjoyed most about the entire story.

Each character in this book is pretty well fleshed out and I walked away from this book curious about each of the characters, wanting more from each of the characters. I'm anxious to read the other Montgomery brothers books now. Especially Ryder. He's so surly and cynical that I'm itching to find out why. Owen is the details brother and I'm thinking that it's going to be interesting to see his heroine try to relax his mind. I'm guessing the pairings are Ryder and Hope then Owen and Avery. I'd be happy with those pairings so I'm looking forward to that.

My least favorite part of this book was the whole thing with Sam Freemont. That whole deal didn't feel genuinely part of the book, it felt more like it was added in at the end and I didn't really buy Sam's whole obsession with Claire. While it didn't dampen my enjoyment of the overall story much, I wasn't too interested in that part of the book.

This book shows promise for the rest of this series and I'm very much looking forward to reading the rest of the books but it wasn't one of my favorites by Nora Roberts.

Grade: 3 out of 5.

This book is available from Berkley Trade. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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