Enjoyable stock standard romance with country music references that's done and dusted in under 250 pages.

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Adele, Molly and Lana are the Darling Songbirds, the country-singing sisters who gained fame in their teens for their smart lyrics and sweet harmonies. But when their father died suddenly on the eve of their big tour, the group acrimoniously broke up. Now, eleven years on, Adele arrives back in Darling Bay, the sleepy gold-rush town founded by her great-grandfather. For Uncle Hugh has bequeathed to the sisters his hotel and bar the Golden Spike. Except this is not the welcoming saloon Adele remembers from her childhood. The building is a ruin, the business is broke and customers are scarce. Add into the mix Nate Houston - the handsome, guitar-playing barman who had always believed he would be the next owner - and Adele has one potent cocktail on her hands. She needs Molly and Lana now more than ever - but the heartache still runs deep. Can a rundown saloon in a sleepy town finally offer the sisters a way back home?

I would have written this off as another feel-good women's fiction novel pretty early on if it hadn't have been for one thing - the characters. Before I get to that though, I just want to tick off the other things that this book does well - backstory, light romance, atmosphere...but really only enough to make this a 3 star book at best...

And then there are the three sisters. Adele and Nate take what could have been a run-of-the-mill romance novel and turn it into something quite a bit more. How? Well, you see, there's the rub - there is nothing, for me, that stands out and says "This is why this book is so good!" It is a feeling, I guess, that I had when reading the book that the author really "got" these characters and knew how they would interact with the town around them - and each other. I totally believed these two and really enjoyed the journey they went through.

A more than average romance novel, written well with great characters!


Paul
ARH