Life at Gray Gables: Book Review Tuesday...The Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy - Book #1- The Next Always..by Nora Roberts

It's Tuesday..Time for a Book Review..well 1 would be great, but how about 3?

I started this trilogy and just..couldn't...put...it...down! I will be reviewing all three books over the next 3 weeks so tune in!

Book #1- The Next Always

The first book in the Trilogy is, The Next Always. I started this book and was captured, literally, from page 1. It begins with a vivid description of a historic hotel in Boonsboro and the story that this hotel has had over the years. It was a part of the war and the peace after the war, and all the owners that have been a part of the hotel. There are even rumors of the hotel being haunted.

The Montgomery Brothers purchased the Hotel and are rehabbing the place with the brains of the architect Montgomery Brother, Beckett.

His crush from when he was 15 comes back to town, after she loses her husband, with her three boys. Clare Brewster is running the town's bookstore and frequents the Pizza shop her best friend owns, where Beckett and the Montgomery Brother's are at daily.

Nora Roberts @ her Inns Boonsboro (google image)

BACK STORY:

Beckett has been in love with Clare since high school. He’s a self assured guy who has never had a problem with the ladies—unless that lady is Clare. He is absolutely hopeless at being smooth with her. He hid his crush and never acted on it because she never really saw him. They weren’t even close friends. They were friendly, sure, but she was friendly with all of his brothers. Unfortunately for him, Clare was in love with someone else in high school and went on to marry him and move away. Fast forward quite a few years and a widowed Clare, with three kids, has moved back to her home town and opened a business. Beckett still never acts on his crush, but he hasn’t forgotten it. He has to remind himself daily that it doesn’t matter.

Clare finds herself drawn to the Inn and wants to take a closer look at the place and Beckett is happy to oblige. There is a romantic story that is unwrapping, slowly, but these two characters are supposed to be in the Inn at the same time and the ghosts are playing a role in making the chemistry burn between them.

I loved how Harry, Liam and Murphy, Clare's boys were a lot like Beckett, Owen and Ryder in a lot of ways and how the Montgomery Boys were drawn to Clare's boys, as if it were a foreshadow of what Clare was supposed to find in her life. I liked that the boys weren’t perfect little kids who existed in the story only to be precocious or wise beyond their years. They didn’t conveniently exit the stage when they weren’t being cute, either. Clare was a mom through and through and they were an integral part of the story and her burgeoning relationship with Beckett.

Favorite Quote:

Ryder sent Beckett a slow smile. “So, you’re hitting on Clare the Fair.”

“I’m not hitting on her. I’m exploring the possibility of seeing her on social terms.”

“He’s hitting on her,” Owen said around a mouthful of chips. “You’ve still got that thing you had for her back in high school. Are you still writing bad song lyrics about heartbreak?”

“Suck me. And they weren’t that bad.”

“Yeah, they were,” Ryder disagreed. “But at least now we don’t have to listen to you playing your keyboard and howling them down the hall.”

Last words..

I know that Nora Robert's gets a lot of flack, a lot of grief and a lot of negative reviews. I have been reading her for years now and she is by far, hands down, my favorite author. I have said it before, I try to write like her, and it is only natural because I read all of her works. To me, she is an amazingly, real, author.

This book, alone, intrigued me, made me want to pick up the next and the next. I don't know if it has to do with the historical part of this novel or what, but it felt so closely parallel to my life, my rehab project, the history of my house. I was hooked and I loved the book. I have already read #2 and #3- but best to save those for their own review pages! This trilogy was amazing and if you are a fan of Nora Roberts, please read! The images that she puts to paper are so real, like photographs in my mind. I could see, relate, feel the emotions from each page and it was an amazing story line as well. But, like I said, I am a huge fan!