Book Highlight: Home at Summer’s End by Alys Murray

Title: Home at Summer’s End (Full Bloom Farm #4)

Author: Alys Murray

Publisher: Bookouture

Publication Date: October 15, 2020

Genre: Women’s Fiction, Romance

Rose Anderson is done with being known as “the nice one” in the small town where she lives. She’s done with playing third, fifth, seventh wheel at loud gatherings on her family’s flower farm. And most of all, she is done with the pitying looks she gets about her single status from the way-too-interested townsfolk.

Busy with her flower-arranging business, Rose has no time for a man, thank you very much. And it has nothing to do with the scars she still nurses from her last breakup. So when she meets Cole McKittrick, Rose gets an idea. But first she needs to get beneath his aloof exterior and convince him to agree…

Cole McKittrick is trying to keep calm. So what if he quit a steady job for a shot at his dream, was dumped and his move to Yokel County, California is bringing back childhood memories he’d rather forget? It’s all about perspective. He doesn’t want to get any more involved in this town than he has to be, so his first instinct is to push Rose Anderson and her intriguing idea away. But the woman won’t get gone, and then she makes him an offer he can’t refuse.

The two are soon neck deep in deception, playing up a starry-eyed romance in public while they clash wits and wills in private. But Cole has been hiding a big secret from Rose about his past. And when Rose finds out could it spell the end for their picture-perfect romance, or will she realize that he has taken over not just her home, but also her heart…?

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Why This Book

Home at Summer’s End is set in a charming little Northern California town, which winds up being a lovely backdrop for a very sweet romance where our leading lady was keenly aware that real life is not a romance novel. This is the last book in the Full Bloom Farm series, but I didn’t feel like I needed to have read the first three books. This was sweet, but I think I loved the family’s flower farm the most. Rose runs the flower shop in town, so of course she must get her flowers from somewhere. I can’t imagine what a flower farm must be like, but I love to imagine rows and rows of beautiful blooms. It might not be a garden, exactly, but, whenever there are enough flowers in one place, I’ll always call it a garden. This flower farm must be lovely, and smell delightful.

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Reviews

My review: “Overall, Home at Summer’s End is both probably a fitting end to the series and a really sweet, tender romance that failed to get my eyes rolling at the ridiculousness. While it does fall into the formula, the lines felt a little more blurred and I could almost believe I was reading the story of a real couple. I did like the ending, but, once that last quarter hit, it started to feel too predictable and I felt like I’d been tossed into the romance novel formula, which was a little jarring since the rest of the book had been a dream”

Kritters Ramblings said “If you are a romance reader then this book is SO up your alley.  All the romance book references just made my day and I love reading a book through the lens of another romance reader”

Carla Loves to Read gave this 4 stars, saying “I found the setting of Hillsboro wonderful with lots of quirky, caring characters. There was humour, some serious issues and secrets, as well as a lot of caring between family members and friends. A fun and flirty romance that I really enjoyed”

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Purchase Links

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Check out all the other books featured this month on The Curated Bookshelf.

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