The Wild Lavender Bookshop. Jodi Thomas

Published:  Kensington
Date:   23rd April 2024
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The trees that circle Someday Valley near Honey Creek are dressed in their fall finest, providing a pretty backdrop for the local businesses—including the little bookshop loved by schoolteacher Cora Lee Buchanan. There, under the watchful eye of owner Noah O’Brien, Cora Lee and her sister, Katherine, meet each Wednesday. Their talk mostly revolves around one subject: their father, known to everyone in town as Bear.

Both Cora Lee and Katherine worry about Bear Buchanan. They’ve no idea Bear has a secret life of his own. As for the sisters, Katherine, beautiful and self-absorbed, is in search of her third husband, while Cora Lee is in love for the first time. On warm nights, she climbs up to her building’s roof to chat with Noah and listen to the melody of the water below. Yet there is more intrigue afoot in Honey Creek . . .

Andi Delane has arrived in town to hear the last wishes of the father she never met. She was shocked to get a letter from lawyer Jackson Landry, and she has few expectations—of this mysterious will, or of Deputy Danny Davis who’s been assigned to protect her. But fall always brings changes, and this year there will be enough to alter not just the lives of those who call Honey Creek home, but the future of Someday Valley itself . . .

Another very enjoyable book from Jodi Thomas, The Wild Lavender Bookshop is at the centre of all the main goings on that happen in Someday Valley over this period of time.

Andi who I have been long looking forward to turning up in Someday Valley finally appears and it is around her that all the action takes place. And finally she will get to meet two of her half brothers.

Andi and the Deputy soon have a thing going on between them, Noah the bookshop owner discovers he really does have feelings for the younger of Bear’s daughter and Bear himself just might have someone rather special to him as well.

The story is told with all the wonderful Texas setting Jodi Thomas does so well, along with that strong sense of humor that is also her trademark.  It has plenty of action and as usual the characters endear themselves to this reader’s heart.