REVIEW: One Perfect Year (Harmony Valley Series #4) By Melinda Curtis

One Perfect Year 

By Melinda Curtis

    Blurb

   He’s coming up on her blind side… 

How can Shelby Hawkley forgive Gage Jamero for bailing on her when she needed him most? He and her husband, Nick, were the best part of her life. Now her former best friend is back, shaking up the widowed wine harvester’s world. The safest bet is to protect herself. Except Gage is awakening feelings that are decidedly unfriend-like.

Shelby is the woman Gage has secretly loved since high school. Starting over—together—could be the best dream he’s ever had. If only he can find the courage to say what he should have said all those years ago.

Heat level: As with all Harlequin Heartwarming books, this story is sweet (has no overt sensuality, rated PG).

One Perfect Year

Excerpt 

 The day he met Shelby, she’d stumbled into his high school science class during his senior year. He’d felt as if he’d been sucker punched. Unbelievably, he, who’d always relied on proof and facts, had fallen in love at first sight. How else could he describe how discombobulated he felt just seeing Shelby? But while he’d over-analyzed those strange, new feelings, Nick, who’d never hesitated in his too-short life, acted right after Gage introduced them.

     Once Gage discovered his feelings for Shelby were substantial and real, it was too late. He’d fallen for his lab partner, and she’d fallen for his best friend. And his feelings hadn’t waned. Not at their high school and college graduations. Not at the engagement party. Not at the wedding. Not at the funeral.

     He’d never acted on his impulses. And tonight would be no different.

     “Gage?” Shelby’s voice. So unsure.

     He closed the distance between them slowly. The slower he approached the longer he had to take note of her features. That no-nonsense, short blond hair beneath a yellow knit cap. That slender figure bundled against the late October chill. That tentative look in her eyes.

     He was the reason for that look, while she was the reason his pulse kicked up a notch.

     He stopped and brought out the heavy artillery—his smile. “Did somebody call for a grape picker?”

     Without missing a beat, she put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t answer any of my messages.”

     He shook his head. The crowd of volunteers watched silently, as if this was enthralling cinema.

     “You didn’t reply to any of my texts or emails either.”

     His smile dimmed.

     “You un-friended me on Facebook.”

     The crowd gasped. A few chuckled.

     “I shut down my Facebook page,” he told her, and the crowd. There, at least that was a defendable excuse.

     “And your phone?”

     Don’t do this to me, Shel.

     He’d never admitted to anyone that he was supposed to have been with Nick the day he died. The secret ate away at him. It probably always would.

     “Gage?” Her vulnerability was strong enough to slip past his guard.

     “I couldn’t.” The words were wrenched out of him.

     She made a sound that was half disapproving huff-half sob and ran toward him, practically tripping over her own two feet. He couldn’t say later if he’d met her halfway, couldn’t remember much beyond her arms coming around him, pressing against the hoofprint contusion near his spine. But the hug…the hug was worth every pang in his bruised and sore back. She held Gage as if he was a precious gift she never wanted to lose.

     For a moment, Gage drew Shelby close, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her hair, imagining what life would be like if she were his: No -over-analyzing. No careful responses. No distance.

     Like there was a chance of that happening.

     The power of his emotions made him realize coming home was a good thing. He’d needed to see Shelby again, if only to say goodbye to her once and for all.

Author

Melinda Curtis

Melinda grew up on an isolated, California sheep ranch, where sightings of passing mountain lions had been recorded and yet she was allowed to roam the 50-acres un-accompanied as soon as she could walk. Being a brave and rather optimistic – clueless of the danger – sort, she took to playing “what if” games. What if the mountain lion comes by while I’m picking up firewood at the edge of the forest? What if my plastic boat sinks in the sheep pond? What if it never stops raining and the road gets so muddy we’re trapped? It led to her fascination with creating stories where she could answer the “what ifs”.

 Melinda spends days chained to her desk trying to figure out new ways to say “He made her heart pound.” That might sound relatively boring, but the mental challenge keeps her on top of her game so her three kids and college sweetheart husband don’t often get the best of her.

Although Melinda has lived in Georgia and Texas, she’s a California girl at heart. Her earliest memories are of life on an isolated 50-acre sheep ranch in rural Sonoma County, California. Picture rolling hills covered in brown grass, a eucalyptus forest, a long gravel driveway lined with plump sheep and no sidewalks. It was a big deal to drive into town on a one-lane road in a ramshackle, bubble-fendered pickup for an ice cream.

Flash forward to this century. Melinda lives in California’s hot central valley with her husband – her basketball playing college sweetheart. With three kids the couple has done the soccer thing, the karate thing, the dance thing, the Little League thing and, of course, the basketball thing.

Melinda writes sweet to medium heat contemporary romances as Melinda Curtis and red hot reads as Mel Curtis.  She loves writing romances about women who don’t realize how strong they are until a hero comes along to show them, while capturing the wry humorous power struggle of falling in love – because, really, who lets the man have the last word?

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melinda.curtis.963

Website: http://www.melindacurtis.net/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MelCurtisAuthor

One Perfect Year 

By Melinda Curtis

Review By Heidi Lynn

First, I want to thank Melinda Curtis for giving me this book so I may bring you this review.

Melinda Curtis One Perfect Year is part of her Harmony Valley Book series.  I didn’t have the pleasure of reading the prior books in the series. However, as a reader it may be read as a stand alone book.

One Perfect Year by Melinda Curtis was such a sweet romance. This story is packed love, loss, forgiveness, a birth of Sugar Lip’s foul, home coming of Shelby, old friends, past memories, etc.

I enjoyed reading about Shelby’s winery that she owned. I love how she described the process of making the wine. I could picture the 20 acres of Chardonnay grapes in my head.

Shelby’s late husband was Gage’s best friend. Gage introduced Nick to Shelby not thinking they would hit it off. When they did actually hit it off it killed Gage. Gage secretly adored Shelby. Shelby needed Gage  for moral support after Nick passed away. Instead of sticking around he stopped communicating to her and left town.  Now years later Shelby returns home to find Gage had come back.

Some of the passages that touched me in one way or another was:

1) Sugar Lips’s uterus tensed once more.  It was go-time. Moments later, he lay painting in the hay cradling the trembling key to his dreams. Sugar Lips lifted her head to see what all the fuss was about, whinnying  when she saw her newborn.

Gage’s chest swelled with pride. This what he loved about being a veterinarian-facing difficult challenges, saving a life, making a connection with a beautiful creature that communicated primarily with body language.

2) The trouble with being a relatively new widow were all the “firsts.” The first night she’d slept in their bed after Nick died.  The first time she passed by the church where they’d been married. The first holidays without him by her side.

Firsts were gut-wrenching, cold moments. They clogged her throat, flooded her eyes ad cut off her breath.  It took time to process them. To acknowledge the innocence, to accept things would never be the same again, and to release the melancholy.

Rating: