'Crystal Cove' Friday Harbor #4 by Lisa Kleypas

From the BLURB:

In New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas's Crystal Cove, Justine Hoffman has made a comfortable life for herself on the island of Friday Harbor. She is the proprietor of a successful boutique hotel, and she has the safe, predictable life she has always wanted. Growing up with her flighty, nomadic mother, Marigold, has instilled in her a deep longing for stability. But in spite of everything Justine has achieved, there is still something missing. Love. And after years of waiting and dreaming, she is willing to do whatever it takes to change her destiny.

What Justine soon discovers is that someone cast a spell on her when she was born, with the result that she will never find her soul mate. Determined to change her fate, Justine finds a way to break the enchantment, never dreaming of the dangerous complications that will follow.

And when Justine meets the mysterious Jason Black, she accidentally unleashes a storm of desire and danger that threaten everything she holds dear . . . because Jason has secrets of his own, and he wants more from her than fate will ever allow.

Justine Hoffman wants to fall in love, but can’t because she’s cursed. Every natural-born witch who falls in love is destined to lose her lover to an untimely death – it’s the price of balance that must be paid to harness magic. Justine’s own mother never recovered from her loss, and so tried to spare Justine the heartache with a spell.

But now a grown adult who has never been in love, Justine is desperate for change. 

What she doesn’t expect is Jason Black to be that change – a gaming guru who’s staying at Justine’s Friday Harbor B&B with a small team of minions while he closes a property deal. 

Jason has his own problems, and is likewise seeking to alter his fate with magic. But when Justine crosses his path, he becomes even more desperate to alter his circumstances and gain a little more time with her …

‘Crystal Cove’ is the fourth book in Lisa Kleypas’s ‘Friday Harbor’ series.

I don’t know what possessed me to pick this up. I hated first book ‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’, despised ‘Rainshadow Road’ and was so indifferent to ‘Dream Lake’ that I didn’t even write a review. This series has been a big departure for Lisa Kleypas who rose to romance fame for her historical’s. And while I loved her contemporary ‘Travis Family’ series (and I’m thrilled to learn of a fourth book coming in 2014, for Joe!) I thought ‘Friday Harbor’, with its dashes of nonsensical magic, was just plain ridiculous. But I've had ‘Crystal Cove’ sitting on my bookshelf since February, and I think it was just being desperate enough for something new of Lisa Kleypas’s that moved me to read … and I've got to say; this is a turn-around book for the ‘Friday Harbor’ series!

Unlike ‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’, which I couldn’t remember having any sort of magic in it (wait – does coincidence count?) and ‘Rainshadow Road’ which I vaguely remember had a scene in which the heroine turns a piece of glass into a butterfly (yeeeeaaaahhhh) ‘Crystal Cove’ makes it absolutely, positively clear that it’s a romance with supernatural bent. The first paragraph has Justine musing on her failed love spells, and a few pages later she’s confessing to being a witch. Yes! I loved this. Writing magic in contemporary romance is a bit like being pregnant – you can’t have just “a little bit of magic” the same way you can’t be “a little big pregnant.” Go big or go home, I say! And, thankfully, Kleypas has started to understand that in this, the fourth ‘Friday Harbor’ book.

Justine owns a grimoire and her mother belongs to the local coven. She can light candles without a match and when she meets Jason Black for the first time, she gets a feeling about him that’s all witchy-instinct. I was so happy that Kleypas finally decided to stop writing on eggshells around the supernatural element in this series – whereas in previous books it was always a weird curveball that seemed plopped into the middle of the plot, in ‘Crystal Cove’ magic is a driving force and the book is better for it. 

And it helps that instead of focusing on the boring Nolan brothers of past books (I’m sorry, but they were DULL) Kleypas introduces us to new and far more interesting characters in local B&B owner, Justine and gaming-guru from San Francisco, Jason Black. In these two Kleypas has written one of her steamiest pairings and, once again, it’s partly in thanks to her embracing the magic element that allows these characters to be a bit headier, and revel in their animal instincts.

The book also feels a little like Alice Hoffman’s ‘Practical Magic’ (to the point that I wondered if Justine’s surname was an ode to the author?). The same way that Owens women lose those they love, so too do all natural-born witches in Kleypas’s world. And where death-foreshadowing in ‘Practical Magic’ was a cricket chirping, in ‘Crystal Cove’ it’s clocks stopping;   

Cletus paused reflectively. “A week before it happened, Bo told me that wherever he went, clocks stopped ticking. His watch froze. Hell, even the kitchen egg-timer hourglass shattered when Bo got near it.” He pulled up the stay-tab on a new can of beer. “Strange thing was, Clive told me he had the same problem, right before his accident. Showed up on time to work every day of his life, but started punching in late, ’cause every clock in the house had stopped. A week later, Clive was gone.”  

Jason stared at him alertly. “They each died a week after the clocks stopped?” His gaze lowered to his stainless-steel watch. Relieved to find that it was still functioning, he let out a controlled sigh. 

Before he looked up, he heard Cletus say gently, “Boy, you’re in a mess o’ trouble, ain’t you?” 

I have been severely unimpressed and downright bored with Lisa Kleypas’s ‘Friday Harbor’ series … until ‘Crystal Cove’. Here is a book that marks a turning point in what has previously been a dragging series. Its strength lies in Kleypas (finally!) embracing the magic element, instead of throwing snippets in as an afterthought. In this book we have an intriguingly doomed romance between a loveless witch and her dark suitor – Kleypas writes one of the steamiest pairings and the entire world of ‘Friday Harbor’ suddenly has interesting prospects for future instalments.

5/5 

'Rainshadow Road' Friday Harbor #2 by Lisa Kleypas

From the BLURB:

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington, with a boyfriend, Kevin, who she believes is her soul mate. She has always had a magical side - a gift that finds its way into the breathtaking glasswork she creates - and she struggles to keep it contained. But when Lucy is blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal, she questions many of her choices. Her boyfriend leaves her and his new lover is none other than Lucy's own sister. Lucy's bitterness over this devastation is multiplied buy the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life.

Meanwhile, facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's family, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on the San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy so that she can more easily move on. But when Sam and Lucy begin to feel real sparks between them, Lucy must ask herself if she can easily risk her heart again.

As Lucy questions her beliefs about love, loyalty, and old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings, she explores the possibility that some things in life - even after are being broken - can be re-made into something beautiful. And that is the only by discovering who you really are that you can find the one who truly deserves you

Lucy’s bad day is rapidly turning into a bad year.

First, her boyfriend of two years dumps her. But Kevin doesn’t let her down easy, oh no! He needs Lucy to move out of their San Juan apartment pronto, because her sister, Alice, is moving in… her younger sister, who it turns out Kevin has been cheating on her with.

Lucy really shouldn’t be so surprised. Little Alice has always taken what she wants and damns the consequences. A childhood illness left Alice, the Marinn family darling, precious and spoilt, so she has never had to struggle or work for anything – and she sees Kevin as just one more entitlement.

In the wake of her bitter break-up, Lucy takes solace in her glass-blowing artwork. Shutting herself away in her studio, left to work with the beautiful coloured glass making sculptures, ornaments and stained-glass windows to her broken hearts content. She moves into a local B&B, run by cousins Justine and Zöe. Lucy swears off men, and focuses all her energy on winning a New York art program scholarship…

And then fate throws Sam Nolan in Lucy’s path. Sam is a local wine grower, who lives in a beautiful, sprawling and dilapidated Victorian house with his older brother, Mark, and their orphaned niece, Holly.

The Nolan brothers did not have an idyllic childhood. The product of two dependent alcoholics, the Nolan name was blackened for many years in San Juan – and it’s only in recent times, with Sam’s successful grapes and Mark’s roaring coffee-bean industry that they’re starting to be accepted into the small town. Although youngest Nolan brother, Alex, is working hard to live up to their parent’s bad behaviour – drinking and moping in the wake of his divorce.

Sam repeatedly bumps into Lucy after her apocalyptic break-up, and he is curious about her and enchanted with her sad green eyes. Friends with Justine, Sam is more than happy to try wooing the clearly wounded Lucy. And when Kevin and Alice get engaged, Lucy becomes increasingly open to Sam’s no-strings-attached flirtations.

What do you do when the magic leaks out of life? How do you learn to take a leap of faith when history tells you you’ll just end up with another busted heart …?

‘Rainshadow Road’ is the second novel in Lisa Kleypas’s contemporary romance series, ‘Friday Harbor’.

I have a deep affection for Lisa Kleypas’s original contemporary romance series, the ‘Travis’ trilogy. ‘Sugar Daddy’ was my first-ever Kleypas read; I didn’t know she had a long backlist of historical romance novels, and thought she was an excellent contemporary romance writer, excelling in that especially lovely romance sub-genre of ‘family saga’. But once ‘Travis’ was over (though I still have my fingers firmly crossed for a Joe book) I was a little bummed to learn that she had no other contemporaries for me to plough through. Sure, I went back and read her ‘Wallflowers’ and ‘Hathaways’ series, but I really wanted another modern-day foray. So I was thrilled when the ‘Friday Harbor’ series was announced. Unfortunately, first book ‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’ left me thoroughly disappointed. Sure, I liked the story and set-up, the romance was okay (if a little tepid), but the short length of the first novel left me frustrated. But I had high hopes for the rest of this series – especially because I loved the San Juan setting, in an idyllic little town just off the Washington coast.

Lucy Marinn is our protagonist in this second instalment. The book opens in flashback to Lucy’s childhood when her younger sister, Alice, contracted meningitis and was subsequently treated like a princess by her mother and father (a trend that followed into adulthood). Flash forward and Kleypas introduces us to an older Lucy experiencing her worst day, when her long-term boyfriend announces he’s dumping her, for her younger sister. And if that sounds fairly soap-operaish, you’d be right. The dumping scene is not a great start to the book – a bit ham-fisted and totally contrived, this opener is Kleypas taking a sledgehammer and hitting readers over the head with our sympathy for Lucy. But Kleypas eventually dials it down a couple of notches, and in subsequent disaster scenes she manages to elicit genuine sympathy for poor old Lucy. It starts with a glass of beer spilled down her top, and then a bicycle accident… all these little/big annoyances that culminate in Lucy’s worst year.

But there’s a silver lining when she meets Sam Nolan, local wine grower and once blacklisted Nolan brother. The push-pull of their romance comes from Sam’s firm ‘no commitment’ rule, and Lucy’s personal vow that she’s swearing off men.

Despite her clunky ‘woe is me’ beginning, I did come to like Lucy. Her bad luck and unfair accidents turn her personal plights endearing, but more appealing is her decision to soldier on despite all the downhill turns, and the funny spin she puts on her romantic catastrophes;

“I don’t trust my instincts where men are concerned,” Lucy said. “It’s like this article I read the other day about the decline of the firefly population. One of the reasons they’re disappearing is because of modern artificial lighting. Fireflies can’t find the signals of their mates, because they’re so distracted by porch lights, streetlamps, illuminated sign letters…”
“Poor things,” Zöe said.
“Exactly,” Lucy said. “You think you’ve found the perfect mate and you heard for him, blinking as fast as you can, and then you find out he’s a Bic lighter. I just can’t handle that again.”

Sam was a little more ho-hum for me. He’s set-up as a big ladies man, the ultimate love em’ and leave em’ sort – but he comes across fairly watered-down, compared to his Lothario reputation. He’s no Hardy Cates, that’s to be sure. I get the impression that if this had have been one of Kleypas’s historical romances; Sam would have revelled in being a cad. But because this is contemporary romance, Sam comes across a little more ‘PC’, and the modern rule of casual ‘no-strings-attached’ relationships covers a multitude of sins. Sam was fine; he just wasn’t a stand out Kleypas hero like she normally excels at writing.

There is a touch of magic in this second book, that wasn’t in the first ‘Friday Harbor’ outing. Lucy has the ability to turn glass into living things (fireflies, hummingbirds etc). Sam also has a bit of magic behind his green thumb.

Lucy had struggled to understand how and why it happened, until she had read a quote by Einstein – that one had to live as though everything was a miracle, or as if nothing was a miracle. And then she had understood that whether she called her gift a phenomenon or molecular physics, or magic, both definitions were true, and the words didn’t matter anyway.

I was a little perplexed by the magic in ‘Rainshadow Road’. It’s not at all a focus of the book – it’s just another attribute to the characters. But it did feel cheesy – yes, yes; we know that true love is magic. But inserting actual magic into the story wasn’t terribly subtle, or clever. Lucy’s magic scenes pop up at random, and were so understated as to be forgotten – until the next glass-turned-hummingbird scene.

I was also a little disappointed in this book because it didn’t feel like Kleypas’s usual family saga. In all her past series, ‘Wallflowers’, ‘Hathaways’ and especially ‘Travis’ – past characters make endearing cameos, and readers are able to follow the progress of romances from past books. I love that in all those series, old characters pop up and we’re offered a glimpse into how their happily-ever-after is going. Less so in ‘Rainshadow Road’. Mark is present for a lot of the book, but his ‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’ lady love, Maggie, is in one paltry scene – and even in that she isn’t given the opportunity to bounce off of (let alone talk to) Lucy. ‘Friday Harbor’ should feel like a real family saga – set on a small island where the Nolans have a reputation that precedes them. Alas, there’s really no sense of family in this series. Even scenes with Sam’s orphaned niece, Holly, are few and far between.

Another niggling annoyance in ‘Rainshadow Road’ was the unresolved story of Lucy’s parents. In light of Alice’s actions, Lucy’s mother consoles her heartbroken daughter with an anecdote from her own life, about how she and Lucy’s father came to be married. This is quite a revelation, and I was desperate for Lucy to chase this story up, have a heart-to-heart with her dad and get some perspective on their marriage. Kleypas sets this side-story up beautifully, but doesn’t go anywhere with it. The story of Lucy’s parents is, in some ways, even better than the Lucy/Kevin/Alice/Sam saga – and I wanted some resolution.

‘Rainshadow Road’ was okay, but I’m not nearly as enamoured of this series as other Kleypas books. It’s lacking that certain something. It’s hard to put my finger on it… this series just doesn’t have that verve or spark. I do look forward to third book ‘Dream Lake’, coming August this year. The third book is about Nolan black sheep, Alex – hopefully third time will be a charm for me with this series.

2.5/5

'Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor' Friday Harbor #1 by Lisa KLEYPAS

From the BLURB:

ONE LITTLE GIRL NEEDS A FAMILY

One rain-slicked night, six-year-old Holly lost the only parent she knew, her beloved mother Victoria. And since that night, she has never again spoken a word.

ONE SINGLE MAN NEEDS A WIFE

The last thing Mark Nolan needs is a six-year-old girl in his life. But he soon realizes that he will do everything he can to make her life whole again. His sister’s will gives him the instructions: There’s no other choice but you. Just start by loving her. The rest will follow.

SOMETIMES, IT TAKES A LITTLE MAGIC…

Maggie Collins doesn’t dare believe in love again, after losing her husband of one year. But she does believe in the magic of imagination. As the owner of a toy shop, she lives what she loves. And when she meets Holly Nolan, she sees a little girl in desperate need of a little magic.

…TO MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE

Three lonely people. Three lives at the crossroads. Three people who are about to discover that Christmas is the time of year when anything is possible, and when wishes have a way of finding the path home…


I cannot believe I am about to blaspheme like this. . . but I have now read a Lisa Kleypas book that I did not love. Dare I say; I disliked it? Eek! What has the world come to?

‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’ is the first book in Lisa Kleypas’s second contemporary romance series. The series is set in San Juan Island, off the Washington coast, and centres on long-time Sanjuanense residents, the Nolan family. There are three brothers, eldest Mark, middle Sam and youngest Alex. The brothers also had one sister, Victoria. . . until she died in a car accident. With Victoria’s sudden death comes responsibility the brothers never dreamt of – mainly in the form of their six-year-old niece, Holly. Victoria has named Mark as Holly’s sole guardian, and suddenly the perennial bachelor is thrown into the role of father.

Mark and Holly move into Sam’s bachelor-pad country house, and the two men try to make the most of their haphazard family. But six months into their guardianship and Holly still hasn’t spoken a word since her mother’s death. . . until Maggie Collins.

Maggie was widowed two years ago, and moved to San Juan six months ago to open a classic toy-shop and move on (slowly) with her life. When she meets the dark and brooding Mark, and his fragile niece, Maggie feels her heart and mind opening up to possibilities she thought were lost. . .

Let me start out by saying I didn’t *hate* this book. . . I just didn’t like it. And really, my only complaint is that the book was too short for me to really get invested. It’s only 224-pages long. That’s 224 in a hardcover edition – so the text is a little big and there’s plenty of white-space. I don’t know if it’s just me, but when I’m paying for a hardcover book, I want a little more than a measly 224-pages! It’s really more of a novella, and I think it would have been better-suited to a romance anthology. ‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’ was the reading equivalent of fairy-floss – by the last page I wasn’t in the least bit full and contented, I was just plain hungry.
Personally, I thought the story could have easily gone on for another 100-150 pages after the conclusion.

I actually really like the premise of the book – bachelor brothers thrown into parenthood (yes, it’s very ‘3 Men and a Baby’. . . but I love that movie!). And I liked the Mark/Maggie romance, even if she was a little bit Mary-Sue (a woman who owns a toyshop conveniently falling for a guy who needs parenting help). The romance is also very PG-13 for a Lisa Kleypas book. The tamer romance suits this story, but Kleypas has promised that future books will revert to her more heated pairings. Still, Mark and Maggie were cute and between them they had a lot of baggage that made for great romantic tension;

“You’re too much for me to handle right now, she said baldly. “I’m not ready.”
His fingers played in her hair, combing slowly through the curls. “When do you think you’ll be ready?”
“I don’t know. I need a transitional person first.”
“I’ll be your transitional guy.”
Even now, in her distress, he could almost make her smile. “Then who’s going to be the guy after that?”
“I’ll be that guy too.”

But the romance felt rushed in 224-pages, and considering the bleak beginning of the novel, I think more could have been made of Mark and Sam’s struggles with Holly in the wake of her mother’s death. . . Basically, I liked the ideas behind ‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’, but the short length of the book meant I couldn’t get too invested. And it’s a shame, because all of the great Lise Kleypas moments are there; ready to be brilliant, if only she had been given an extra 100 pages to play with. . .

Lifting his head, Mark smoothed her rambunctious curls and spoke in a voice roughened with affection. “Being alone isn’t safety, Maggie. It’s just being alone.”

Probably the most I got out of this book was a deep yearning to go and visit San Juan. Kleypas’s description of the place (coupled with a Google images search) paints a picturesque American sea-side town – the likes of which I thought could only be found in idealized TV shows and movies. Kleypas goes on to describe the town in finite, mouth-watering detail - including what types of food is sold at the local bakeries and cafes (bacon doughnuts and vegetable quiche!).

‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’ is the first book in what looks to be a four-part series. But because Ms. Kleypas is taking a hiatus in 2011 (NOOOOOOOO!) the next few books are scheduled for 2012 release.

• Rainshadow Road (Jan, 2012)
• Griffin Bay (May, 2012)
• Dream Lake (Sept, 2012)

I absolutely, thoroughly adored Kleypas’s first foray into contemporary romance with her ‘Travis’ trilogy – those are some of my all-time favourite romance reads! I was thrilled to learn that she had a second contemporary romance series planned. . . but book #1 of ‘Friday Harbor’ really hasn’t tickled my fancy. I’m sorry. I feel like I should hand in my Lisa Kleypas fan-pass. . . I might be willing to give this series a second chance, but only if the word-count is bulked-up and the romance heated up.

2/5