Book Review – The Next Always

by Nora Roberts (Piatkus) ISBN: 9780749955366

Nora Roberts, international bestselling author, has turned her hometown into a tourist attraction. She has written a fictional trilogy—The Next Always is the first—of the historic bed-and-breakfast she and her family remodelled in BoonsBoro, Maryland two years ago.

Keeping with her literary aspirations, Roberts has created rooms inspired by famous fictional couples—from the pages of Dashiell Hammet to Jane Austen, even her own Eve Dallas series. Roberts has even opened a nearby bookstore, the Turn the Page Bookstore Cafe, for those romantic pilgrims wanting to pay tribute to the queen of popular fiction.

Nora Roberts has cleverly turned real life into fiction with The Inn at BoonsBoro Trilogy. The series revolves around the handsome Montgomery brothers, their eccentric mother, and the family obsession with the Inn BoonsBoro. In the first instalment, we meet Beckett or Beck as he is known. He is the architect of the family, a tall down-to-earth blue-jeans kind of hero who wants to rekindle a teen romance. Clare Brewster has come home after losing her husband to run the local bookstore. It’s a premise that makes for great small town romantic fiction.

The novel is filled with the colour, tastes, sounds and souls of the inn and its people. It’s a great story, teeming with humour, romance and has that “feel-good” factor that will have readers eager for the second episode. Nora Roberts has created another winner.

Anthony Ehlers
4/5