Carolina Blues by Virginia Kantra (Dare Island #4)
Contemporary Romance
October 7, 2014
Berkley

Reviewed by Helyce

Jack Rossi has moved to the quiet town of Dare Island following his divorce to be the new Police Chief.  Having come from a big city where he dealt with crimes of all manner, he’s enjoying the somewhat laid back ways of Dare Island.  Though the job is such that he is almost always ‘on-call’ being there are only two other officers to cover the small island, he is working his way to contentment.

Lauren Patterson is a grad student/author who has temporarily moved to Dare Island to work on her second book.  A follow-up relating to her experience as a hostage in a bank robbery where she had miraculously used her than limited knowledge as a student of Psychology to talk her captors into standing down and  turning themselves in.  While having realized some success after her first book, Lauren still finds herself plagued with panic attacks and nightmares as one might expect following such an experience. With the deadline fast approaching for her second book, and Lauren struggling to get her thoughts on paper, she accepts the invitation from her publicist to come to Dare Island, stay at the inn her family manages, as a sort of safe place where she can get her thoughts in order and get her book written.

Lauren finds a different kind of distraction altogether when her daily visits to the town’s bakery to work introduce her to Jack Rossi.  Handsome beyond thought, she’s attracted to him but her past haunts her constantly and she finds it difficult to deal with people as a whole. While Lauren is not someone who Jack would normally find himself attracted to with her piercings and tattoos he can’t ignore the pull he feels whenever they run into each other.

I enjoyed Jack Rossi.  Handsome and sexy, and still dealing with the fact his wife was having an affair with his partner, causing their divorce, Jack is adapting to his new job.  He gets along well with his small staff and is respected because even as Chief, he’s the first one to go out on a call when needed. When he meets Lauren in the bakery for the first time, she’s familiar to him but he just can’t place her.  When she confides in him about who she is, he sees the resemblance to the face that had been splashed all over the newspapers and television after her ordeal, though she’d now dyed her hair, sported a few tattoos and had some facial piercings.  He’d never been attracted to that goth look, but there was something about Lauren and he found himself seeking her out more and more.

Lauren’s character was a little harder to warm up to.  Her experience as a hostage had changed her as one could imagine.  She was jumpy and prone to panic attacks and did not really let anyone get too close to her.  Her experience had caused her to be a bit closed off and she didn’t trust herself to make good decisions regarding men.  She’d fallen into a habit of seeking out men that she thought she could “fix”.  She’d kept her encounters with men to one night stands or very short-term situations.  I wasn’t sure what to expect of her, with all her issues but I did like how she approached Jack and clearly spelled out what she wanted and what she didn’t.  This takes Jack by surprise a bit, but once the ground rules are set he’s all in. Lauren and Jack are a bit unprepared by how their coupling affects the both of them; it’s almost immediate and neither can deny that it’s impossible to be just “sex” between them.

As Lauren and Jack explore the possibilities of a relationship, Lauren’s past continues to haunt her made worse by the fact that her friend Jane’s ex is back on the island and trying to extort money out of Jane, using their young son to do it.  Lauren is witness to a few of their confrontations, but Jane insists she has everything under control. I liked the side story with Jane and her ex and how the author used what was happening to draw Lauren out of her shell and reconnect with that confident, stronger, take charge side of herself once more.

All in all, Carolina Blues is a nice, heartfelt romance where two people find each other at a time when they aren’t really looking, making the relationship feel that much more special.  A nice addition to the series, I classify this as a “feel good” romance.  Easily read with just the right amount of intrigue and conflict before we get our happy ever after.

Rating: B

Goodreads l Author Website l Series

Kindle l Nook