Library book for Kindle; first in the Charleston trilogy. After ace journalist watches her fiance be killed in a car explosion in Afghanistan, Dinah hightails it home & imagines herself married to the safe brother, Bobby. Except he's engaged and in love with another. But sparks fly with his bad boy brother, Cord. ( )

The problem which I had with this book was not with the set-up. The initial idea is good. Dinah returns home, to Charleston, shattered from her experiences as a war correspondent with a strange idea that she can find her past love, Bobby, and reconnect. She sees a life with Bobby as an alternative, second-best solution now that she can no longer do what she wants. Instead of Bobby she bumps into his brother Cordell and is attracted from the first but she needs to fight against this because a future with him isn't in her planning at all. Dinah's emotional problems are well set out and it is possible to understand how she clings on to something which has kept her going in harder times and her reluctance to try something new.

Where I had the issue with the book is in the way in which the author solves Dinah's problems. It is difficult to explain this without spoilers but just to say that although a life with Bobby is supposed to be second best for her the identical life, but with Cordell, is OK because they love one another passionately. I would have liked to see Dinah getting back to the life she had before, recovered and ready to go, rather than give it all up for a man. I thought that it was all a bit unsatisfying. ( )

not really fast enough or differrent pace for me... too bad, I was looking forward to a trilogy I hadn't read yet. ( )