Guest Review: Summer on Mirror Lake

Today the Bat Cave is hosting guest reviewer Janet Webb who many of you know from her writing at Heroes & Heartbreakers (RIP), Criminal Element, and as a longtime resident of Romancelandia. Welcome Janet!

Honeymoon Harbor is a romance destination worth visiting—it’s a vibrant Pacific Northwest community, complete with a long-ago Romeo/Juliet*esque family feud, gorgeous brothers, to-die-for scenery, and plots that gently wind themselves around the heart strings. Summer on Mirror Lake is the 3rd Honeymoon Harbor book. Herons Landing #1 and Snowfall on Lighthouse Lane #2 are the first two book in the series. It reminds me of Debbie Macomber’s Pacific Northwest series (a compliment, believe me!) because earlier characters don’t disappear after they get their HEA: they are woven into the plot. (N.B. what really packs a wallop, the pointed brother to brother advice.)

Gabriel (Gabe) Mannion is the second oldest Mannion son, destined from birth to compete with his over-achieving older brother Quinn (former hot-shot lawyer, now crafts beer entrepreneur extraordinaire). Gabe did not expect to collapse at the funeral of his mentor but hey, who would? Where to recover and recuperate?

When he lands in the emergency room after collapsing at the funeral of a colleague and friend, Wall Street hotshot Gabriel Mannion initially rejects the diagnosis of an anxiety attack. But when warned that if he doesn’t change his adrenaline-fueled, workaholic lifestyle he could end up like his friend, Gabe reluctantly returns to his hometown of Honeymoon Harbor to regroup. 

Gabe reluctantly admits “that everybody had their limits,” and he decides to go for a run each morning along a lakeshore trail and visit Quinn’s bar each night to drink away his chagrin at having a life-plan interruptus. He knows that second chances don’t come along all that often. And in case we missed it, JoAnn Ross slyly reminds us of the quintessential second chance story.

But it wasn’t too late. He figured that ER doc was more like Scrooge’s Ghost of Christmas Future. He hadn’t revealed what would happen. Only what could. Gabe was perfectly capable of changing his fate. All he had to do was make a plan. It wasn’t all that different from analyzing financial data. 

What could go wrong? Gabe is a man with a plan and everyone in Honeymoon Harbor knows he’s richer than God. The problem with drinking at Quinn’s bar is that after two weeks Quinn tells it to him straight: “You do realize that you’re driving customers away.” Come again? But Quinn’s right, the bar isn’t as busy as it was when he first came to town. Of course, Gabe denies that it has anything to do with him but Jarle Biornstad, Quinn’s Norwegian giant of a cook, agrees: “The edgy vibe radiating off you is scaring people away.” They tell him how to fill his “days of leisure.” He should build a boat, something he loved to do before he went away to college. Specifically, a Viking faering.

“Even if I wanted to, which I haven’t said I do, it’d be a push to get a decent-size one done in three months.” Which was his deadline. By then he’d be rested, at his fighting weight and ready to get back into the fray.  

“Because your summer schedule is so booked.”  

Gabe gave him a hard stare. “You’re pushing me.”  

“Just saying,” Quinn said mildly. That was a funny thing about the eldest Mannion. Gabe couldn’t remember his older brother ever yelling, or even raising his voice. Yet, somehow, just like his dad, who was the quieter of his parents, he always got his way, always made things happen. 

Quick aside to JoAnn Ross: when is Quinn’s story coming down the pike because I’m more than ready!

I’m sure readers are more than ready to meet the heroine of Summer on Mirror Lake. Chelsea Prescott, head librarian and friend to all, faces life with a determinedly glass-half-full attitude. That’s her choice. Her childhood slid into tragedy after her younger sister died and her doctor dad left the family. Her mother died when Chelsea was in college—police called it an accidental overdose, but Chelsea saw it as a slow, tragic suicide. Honeymoon Harbor’s library was her safe place and former head librarian Lillian Henderson was her second mother. Chelsea may have stepped into Lillian’s shoes, but she’s determined to put her own stamp on the job. The Summer Readers’ Adventure group is Chelsea’s pet project—she not only wants kids to delve into books during the summer, she’s planning field trips to enhance the curriculum. What would match up better with a “Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book on northern myths” than a visit to see an actual Viking ship under construction? Brianna, a good friend of Chelsea, and the only Mannion sister, spills the beans, although she warns her girlfriend “not to get your hopes up.”

"He’s been a loner out at the lake, and extremely noncommunicative even with us. I have the feeling something significant happened in New York, but if anyone knows what it was, it’d be Quinn, and he’s not talking." 

Everybody knew that Quinn Mannion held secrets as tightly as a priest hearing a confession at St. Peter the Fisherman’s church. Which was why he undoubtedly knew personal things about most people in Honeymoon Harbor.  

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to ask,” she decided. “All he can do is say, no, right?”  

“Right. And good luck. Quite honestly, I think it’s be as good for him as it would be fun for the kids.” 

A week or so later, Chelsea tracks down Gabe in a “back corner of the Honeymoon Harbor wooden boat-building school.” He doesn’t remember her although he has fond memories of Lillian Henderson. Chelsea tells him that Mrs. Henderson is on the advisory board.

“I didn’t realize libraries had advisory boards.”  

“Many do.” Twin dimples appeared in her cheeks as she smiled. She was, as his grandfather Harper would say, cute as a button. Even as her naughty librarian glasses had him imagining unbuttoning a few more of those buttons, Gabe reminded himself that he didn’t do cute. 

And he doesn’t do boat-building tours, telling her it’s a liability issue. Chelsea protests: “Even if I promise that they won’t touch a thing?” “Even then,” Gabe says and if you think that’s the end of it, you need to read more romance.

Summer on Mirror Lake is my favorite of the Honeymoon Harbor series because the protagonists are so different, yet they’re absolutely made for each other. Even when they resolve their difficulties over boat visits and decide to have a secret summer fling (that everyone in town knows about), the end of August looms like a big dark storm cloud. Everyone knows Gabe’s real home is the gold-paved canyons of Wall Street—or is it? JoAnn Ross never disappoints—take this to the beach and enjoy.