Lover’s Oak

Tension is lax to nonexistent in Scott’s otherwise enjoyable contemporary romantic suspense story about Lillian Mae Coleman-Huntington, who was once a little rich girl and is now widowed, orphaned, and broke. After her father’s death, Lilly returns to Wildfire, Ga., where she’s decidedly unwelcome. It’s been 12 years since Lilly left town on the arm of Winston Huntington III, her wealthy Boston husband, and three years since she’s even spoken to her dad, Big Mitch. Now she’s miserably lonely and being targeted by a long-ago enemy whose hatred still simmers. The family cotton plantation, Lover’s Oak, has been willed to her 11-year-old half-sister Daisy, and Lilly decides it’s her job to see that the child has the help she needs to run it. Naturally Lilly has a complicated history—and a potential future—with Wildfire’s sheriff, Jackson Trainer. Luckily he’s on her side when things start going very wrong at the plantation. But too many overlong flashbacks and an unnecessary subplot serve only to add bulk to what could have been a straightforward, pleasant story of reunion and redemption. Agency: Belcastro Agency. (Aug.)