The Best Man. Finished 10-21-14, rating 4.5/5, romance, 432 pages, pub. 2013

This is the first in the Blue Heron series.

Faith Holland left her hometown after being jilted at the altar. Now a little older and wiser, she’s ready to return to the Blue Heron Winery, her family’s vineyard, to confront the ghosts of her past, and maybe enjoy a glass of red. After all, there’s some great scenery there….

Like Levi Cooper, the local police chief – and best friend of her former fiancé. There’s a lot about Levi that Faith never noticed, and it’s not just those deep green eyes. The only catch is she’s having a hard time forgetting that he helped ruin her wedding all those years ago. If she can find a minute amidst all her family drama to stop and smell the rosé, she just might find a reason to stay at Blue Heron, and finish that walk down the aisle.

from Goodreads

This is the first book in the Blue Heron series.

Faith Holland left her hometown after being jilted at the altar. Now a little older and wiser, she’s ready to return to the Blue Heron Winery, her family’s vineyard, to confront the ghosts of her past, and maybe enjoy a glass of red. After all, there’s some great scenery there….

Like Levi Cooper, the local police chief – and best friend of her former fiancé. There’s a lot about Levi that Faith never noticed, and it’s not just those deep green eyes. The only catch is she’s having a hard time forgetting that he helped ruin her wedding all those years ago. If she can find a minute amidst all her family drama to stop and smell the rosé, she just might find a reason to stay at Blue Heron, and finish that walk down the aisle.

from Goodreads

What a fun contemporary romance!  It was lighthearted and the Finger Lakes region of New York was a great setting.  I love that beautiful region and loved visiting all of the local wineries when we took a trip there a few years ago.  At first I wasn’t sure I even wanted Faith and Levi to have a happily-ever-after because he was so…rigid? Then as I got to know him, of course, I loved him.  He is an alpha male as I prefer them in my romance novels. Good romance authors can make that alpha male melt under the spell of his crush and still remain true to his strong sense of self.  Higgins did that well with Levi.  It was never too much.

Faith really did have bad luck with men and then with women when she tried to find her dad a girlfriend.  She had a big family that loved her and when she came home it was no surprise that she stayed, but what was a little surprising is the friendship that she renewed with her ex-fiance.  She is a stronger woman than I am!

This was not all light and breezy, there were some somber issues like guilt, class, and abandonment and that added a nice layer to the story. The only thing keeping this from a higher rating is the mention Faith’s ‘rack’ more than once.  But the tone and characters of the book left me happy and looking forward to the next in the series!

I bought this one after so many bloggers raved about it and now I’m a Higgins fan 🙂

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