Happy After All

Bestseller Yates (the Four Corners Ranch series) shows the time and patience it takes to heal in this stirring grumpy/sunshine romance. Romance novelist Amelia Taylor needs a fresh start after a painful breakup with her long-term boyfriend. She leaves Los Angeles for the small California desert town of Rancho Encanto, where she buys the Pink Flamingo motel. Among her first guests is grouchy fellow author Nathan Hart, who takes a room for the summer. His surly demeanor makes it clear that he’s not looking to socialize; he’s there to write. But that does nothing to lessen the intense attraction Amelia feels for him. He returns each summer for the next few years and the pair grow closer, but it will take the help of the town they’ve both come to love—and especially Amelia’s meddling old lady friends—to pierce Nathan’s walls and reveal his heartrending backstory. Yates’s protagonists turn out to be perfectly matched as they help each other get over past heartbreak. Readers will have no trouble rooting for these two. (Jan.)