Review: Not So New in Town by Michele Summers (Harmony Homecomings #2)

Note: This ARC was provided by Sourcebooks Casablanca via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

After seventeen years, Lucy Doolan has decided to return to Harmony, North Carolina, to help take care of her stepsister Julia in her last couple of months of pregnancy and her fifteen-year-old nephew Parker. She and Julia have always had their issues and Lucy's already expecting her stepsister to be her usual evil self. What Lucy doesn't expect is seeing Brogan Reese, her high school crush, Julia's ex-boyfriend, and the man rumored to be Parker's father, and it appears as if the crush she had on him then still exists right now.

Brogan has always seen Lucy as a sweet girl but never thought of her as anything more than his then-girlfriend's stepsister. Now, he sees her in a completely new light and the fact that she's a genius when it comes to marketing is a bonus because he seriously needs someone to help drum up more business for his specialty food store. As their relationship develops into something more, Lucy sees her dreams of being with Brogan coming true, but with a painful past still haunting him, there may not be a future for them.

Not So New in Town is the second book in the Michele Summers-penned Harmony Homecomings series and turns the spotlight on Lucy Doolan and Brogan Reese, both Harmony natives who left town and are only now making a return and receiving very different receptions. While Lucy is welcomed back with open arms by most of the townsfolk, Brogan is looked upon with suspicion since rumor has it he got Julia, Lucy's stepsister pregnant, a longstanding rumor that Julia never really went out of her way to clear up. 

Lucy has always had a crush on Brogan but he never saw her as anything more than Little Lucy, up until he gets a good look at her seventeen years later and realizes she's grown up to be a beautiful and intelligent woman. There's a connection between the two of them but Brogan has been scarred by the fact that his father was never around while he was growing up and Lucy has certain insecurities when it comes to Julia and her relationship with Brogan plus her ex-boyfriend quickly ended once she learned of his deception.

I liked this story more than I did its predecessor but as was the case with book one, it did take a good, long while before I felt any affection for the lead characters. My heart squeezed when Brogan did what he did in chapter 26, and I so wanted to smack the guy more than once. I hope the next book will be about Javier Coloma, Brogan's best friend and business partner, but it would also be interesting to have the outsider be a woman and the one from Harmony a man for book three. I'm giving Not So New in Town four stars. ♥

Release Date: 07 July 2015

Date Read: 03 July 2015

Learn more about Michele Summers here.

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