Bittersweet Creek

Kilpatrick (The Happy Hour Choir) transplants Shakespeare into West Tennessee with mixed success in this stand-alone contemporary. English teacher Rosemary "Romy" Satterfield returns to her family's farm and runs into Julian McElroy, her husband. Specifically, she runs into him with her fianc%C3%A9's car. Killing Julian would have made Romy's McElroy-hating ancestors proud, but she feels a little bad about the encounter, since she once loved him. On the night they were supposed to elope, Julian said his vows and then broke her heart. Now it's 10 years later and she's over it; she just needs him to sign divorce papers so she can be free to marry Nashville millionaire Richard Paris, who doesn't know%E2%80%94yet%E2%80%94that Romy is married. The inauspicious collision between Julian and Romy leads to further encounters, and soon Romy is wondering whether she and Julian can work things out after all, and end the 150-year feud between the Satterfields and the McElroys. With numerous Shakespeare quotations and references that can be too cute by half (Romy and Julian, get it?), Kilpatrick wends her down-home sweet-tea way through some weighty themes, including spousal abuse. Fans of Southern contemporary romance will be charmed. (Nov.)