Rose Cameron has escaped her wreck of a marriage and her thieving ex-husband with a beat-up car holding all her worldly possessions and arrived in Haven Ridge to take a job helping Erin Parker with a house in desperate need of a cleanout and repairs.
But Will, Erin’s twin, wants to sell the house, and gives Erin and Rose a month to come up with a way of making the house pay for itself.
This is a romance, so we know Rose and Will are going to get together once they get past their differences. But there’s also a house to clear out and hopefully something to find that will enable them to keep the house rather than selling their family heritage.
If you’ve read the previous books in the Haven Ridge series (The Broken Hearts Bakery and The Beacon Street Bookshop), you might remember Will as the somewhat uptight accountant. In The Larkspur House, we get to see more about Will and Erin, which means we get to know more about Will. He’s a true gentleman who will do almost anything to protect his sister – a professional cellist.
Rose is a good person whose life hasn’t gone as planned because of her ex-husband’s bad choices. But she also has some things to learn about herself and about life.
I enjoyed seeing the developing relationship between Rose and Will, but I also enjoyed Erin and Will’s sibling relationship, and the growing friendship between Rose and Erin.
This wasn’t a coming home story. This was a running away story, and in her experience, those had the potential to be so much more interesting.
The Haven Ridge novels aren’t Christian fiction, in that while some of the characters go to church, that reads more like a scene location than an underlying character trait. But they also aren’t general market romance, in that there isn’t any swearing or sex scenes (which, if you think about it, seems out of character for red-blooded adults who don’t have a religious or personal reason for not sleeping with their significant other).
But they are good contemporary romances which offer some solid insights into life and love …
In my experience, you can answer all someone’s fears and objections and they still won’t take a chance until you capture their imagination.
Overall, The Larkspur House is a solid contemporary romance with an element of mystery thrown in, and perhaps even a sprinkling of magic.
Recommended for fans of sweet contemporary romance from authors such as TI Lowe, Amy Matayo and Courtney Walsh.
About Carla Laureano
Carla Laureano is the RITA® Award-winning author of contemporary inspirational romance and Celtic fantasy (as C.E. Laureano). A graduate of Pepperdine University, she worked as a sales and marketing executive for nearly a decade before leaving corporate life behind to write fiction full-time. She currently lives in Denver with her husband and two sons, where she writes during the day and cooks things at night.
You can find Carla Laureano online at:
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About The Larkspur House
Rose Cameron holds the record for bad decisions. Not only did she drop out of grad school to get married, but her husband wasn’t who he pretended to be—and his shady business dealings threatened both her reputation and her freedom.
Real estate agent Bailey Jensen just wants a single quiet weekend in the midst of her goal-driven life, and a professional conference in Islamorada, Florida seems like just the thing—if she can ignore the fact she’ll be flying conspicuously solo at the company awards banquet in front of her ex-boyfriend and his new love.
