The Second Time Around
(Willow Bay #1)
by Kelly Collins
Amazon / BB
Brie Watkins had loved two men in her life. One abandoned her at the altar twelve years ago, and the other died in the war. She is no stranger to loss, but she’s still learning how to move on. When her sick aunt asks her to come back to Willow Bay to help at the family resort, Brie says yes. After all, she’s a southern girl at heart, and a southern girl never turns her back on kin. Brie sells her beloved home, quits her job restoring historic properties, and goes back to the last place she wants to be, only to find her aunt healthy, The Brown Resort thriving, and the man who left her at the altar living next door, looking as handsome as ever. Why can’t life be fair?
Carpenter Carter Kessler left Willow Bay a dozen years ago and never looked back, but he never forgot his first love, Brie. He’s spent the rest of his life regretting his decision to leave her all those years ago. After his father’s death, he reluctantly returns to find his family’s resort a mess. But it is not a total disaster – Brie is next door and as beautiful as ever. He talks her into helping him refurbish The Kessler Resort, but first, she lays out the ground rules: they aren’t friends, they’ll never be lovers, and she’ll never stop hating him. As far as Carter is concerned, it’s a start.
But as summer heats up, so does their relationship. As they peel back the layers, what will they find hiding beneath the surface? Can what they started all those years ago be restored, or are some things better left buried in the past?
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
I’ve got my regimen down. I wake up, get up, and grab my coffee, which I like with a little nip of whiskey. My sweet tea with a bit of Long Island, and my lemonade with a dab of vodka. At my age, they say it’s important to thin the blood.
What are you going to do about Margot? That girl is five dollars’ worth of ten-cent makeup.
Marybeth gave her a critical look. “Your ass cheeks are like two communion wafers in a paper sack, sweetie. If no one shook the bag, we wouldn’t know they were there.”
A woman sitting on the edge of the dock gasped, then punched the man sitting beside her in the arm. “Turn around, Hank. That’s how it’s done. You don’t pop open a beer can and say, ’Let’s get hitched.’” Hank made a face and shrugged. “You said yes anyway.” She shouldered him. “That’s because I didn’t have other plans that weekend.”
My Review:
I adored this! While I revel in and will never tire of her Aspen Cove series, I am delightedly impatient with anticipation for more of this new one as well. This installment was an excellent commencement for a new set of tales.
Kelly Collins just keeps honing her stellar storytelling skills, the premise was original, the pace was perfectly smooth, and the story threads were amusing, authentic, and easy to fall into with an endearingly flawed cast of characters that entertained as well as beguiled.
I was quickly enamored with Willow Bay and believe my favorite character is going to be the bird-loving Cricket, and I’ll just leave the type of bird as a smirk-worthy surprise for now.
ABOUT KELLY COLLINS
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International bestselling author of over 30 novels, Kelly Collins writes with the intention of keeping the love alive. Always a romantic, she blends real-life events with her vivid imagination to create characters and stories that lovers of contemporary romance, new adult, and romantic suspense will return to again and again.
