The Perfect Hope by Nora Roberts

The Perfect Hope (2013) (Piatkus)
Nora Roberts
Grade: B+
Genre: contemporary romance
Sex scenes: mild
Source: library

Inn Boonsboro: (1) The Next Always, (2) The Last Boyfriend, (3) The Perfect Hope

Hope Beaumont is the innkeeper of the new Inn at Boonsboro, having escaped the city-life that she had believed was perfect. Manager at a big city-hotel chain and in what she believed was a long-term, committed relationship with the son and heir of the company, Hope’s life crumbled when she discovered that Jonathan was actually engaged to someone else all along, and that the whole family had been in on the secret. Hope relocates to Boonsboro on the advice of Avery Montgomery, a friend from college, and falls right into small-town life.

Cover rant: Nora Roberts

My love affair with Nora Roberts is well-known amongst regular readers and well-documented on this blog. The recent covers for her US contemporaries have been great (Bride Quartet and Inn Boonsboro) – very dreamy and romantic – and I’ve loved them. There’s been some slight changes for a few titles for the UK versions, but they’re ones that I can live with.

NR’s books are constantly being reissued and none so more than ever for Kindle with brand new spanking covers to match. I’ve generally approved (MacKades, Dream trilogy, Stars of Mithra) because they’ve been great choices. NR has been writing since 1981, so her ‘contemporaries’ thirty years ago can’t really be called as such today, but she writes with such a timelessness that it doesn’t matter; her books could be set in the seventeenth century and you might not notice. While you can probably tell with the older books that it is slightly out-of-date, there is never enough to properly pinpoint the book to a set timeframe, and so I find myself not really caring that it is twenty years old and some practices just aren’t done anymore. This is Nora Roberts for Chrissakes: she’s The Master.

The Last Boyfriend by Nora Roberts

The Last Boyfriend (2012) (Piatkus)

Nora Roberts

Grade: C

Genre: contemporary romance

Sex scenes: mild

Source: library
Inn Boonsboro: (1) The Last Goodbye, (2) The Last Boyfriend, (3) The Perfect Hope

Only the last finishing touches are left on the construction side of things at the Inn Boonsboro and the Montgomery brothers are almost ready to step back and allow the women in with the furniture to make the inn start to look like the finished article. With Beckett handling the plans, Ryder the main design work and Owen making sure that all the tiny details are seen to, the Montgomery brothers - under the watchful eye of their mother, Justine - make a formidable team. The Inn had been in a derelict state for years before the Montgomerys added it to their portfolio and soon the building will be fully restored to its former glory, much to the excitement of everyone in the town.

The most awesome thing about Inn Boonsboro is that the rooms are named after famous literary couples. Guests have a choice between Elizabeth and Darcy, Titania and Oberon, Nick and Nora, Marguerite and Percy, Jane and Rochester, Westley and Buttercup, Eve and Roarke and The Penthouse. Each is decorated in its own unique style to match the relevant time period and it sounds lush. Even better is that Inn Boonsboro is an actual place in NR’s actual hometown, making it that tiny bit awesome. I admit to being rather disappointed by the photos of the real thing (Titania and Oberon and Westley and Buttercup look the best) as my imagination had gone rather wild at all the brilliant descriptions in the books, but nevertheless, it’s a great concept for a hotel.