First line: “What do you think?” Jenna Stevens asked, doing her best to sound confident.
From the back cover: After nearly a decade as a sous chef in a trendy eatery, Jenna is desperate for a change. She’s supported her ex-husband’s dreams for so long that she can’t even remember her own. Until she sees a for-lease sign near her parents’ home and envisions her very own cooking store.
Her crash course in business is aided by a streetwise store manager and Jenna’s adoptive mother. But just as she’s gaining a foothold in her new life, in walk her birth parents – aging hippies on a quest to reconnect with their firstborn.
Now, Jenna must figure out how to reconcile the free-spirited Serenity and Tom with her traditional parents, deal with her feelings for a new love interest and decide what to do about her ex’s latest outrageous request. In the end, Jenna will find that there is no perfect family, only the people we love…
My thoughts: I have always enjoyed Susan Mallery’s romance books, and while Already Home is more women’s fiction than romance, it was just as good. When Jenna’s husband betrays her, she leaves her life and career as a sous-chef in L.A. to return home to rebuild her life. She decides to switch gears and opens a cookware store where she meets a bunch of characters (some family, some friends, some customers) who play important roles in her coming to terms with the cards life has dealt her. The story is all about her reluctantly getting to know her birth parents, as well as herself, better. It’s about family and how much love there is to go around. I love the way Susan Mallery tells this story. She makes you think about life’s twists and turns. Even though things change, the love of family and friends is most important in your life. The story revolves around relationships between women – Jenna and her adoptive mother, Jenna and her birth mother, Jenna and Violet, and Violet and Jenna’s two moms. I felt that Susan Mallery handled the touchy subjects of adoption, birth parents, spousal abuse and physical abuse with care all the while keeping the storyline light and fast-paced. I read this book in a day, staying up late into the night to finish it, laughing and crying throughout.
I received a complimentary copy of Already Home by Susan Mallery fromEric at Planned Television Arts.
This sounds like a great read! I have never read anything by Susan Mallery but I think I'm going to have to change that with this book!
@BonnieShe has some great trilogies out there and I've read most of them…they are fun, light reads and fall under the romance category. This one is a little more heavy and romance isn't at the forefront.