cover image Angel Lane

Angel Lane

Sheila Roberts, . . St. Martin?s Griffin, $13.99 (335pp) ISBN 978-0-312-38482-1

Roberts returns to Heart Lake, Wash., for a second beguiling visit (after Spring in Bloom ). Chocolatier Jamie Moore, her bakery-owner aunt Sarah and quilt store owner Emma Swanson take on a community project, “Have a Heart,” to encourage good deeds in Heart Lake, but the friends find paying-it-forward isn’t as easy as it would seem. Cop Josh Armstrong, a handsome widower with two cute daughters, keeps rescuing Jamie, who fights her attraction to him because of her first marriage to an abusive cop. Emma, who’s struggling to keep her store open and is also hungry for love, adopts a stray cat. Married Sarah fights off a lecherous neighbor and gives free (but messy) baking lessons to girls. Roberts’s world of good deeds can verge on Thomas Kinkade overkill, though her relentless cheer will doubtless warm more than a few hearts. (Oct.)