4.5 STARS ✮ SARINA BOWEN ✮ BOUNTIFUL

BOUNTIFUL

True North #4

Sarina Bowen

✮✮✮ 4.5 STARS ✮✮✮

Once upon a time a cocky, copper-haired tourist sauntered into Zara’s bar. And even though she knew better, Zara indulged in a cure for the small-town blues. It was supposed to be an uncomplicated fling—a few sizzling weeks before he went back to his life, and she moved on.

Until an accidental pregnancy changed her life.
Two years later, she’s made peace with the notion that Dave From Brooklyn will never be found. Until one summer day when he walks into her coffee shop, leveling her with the same hot smile that always renders her defenseless.

Hockey star Dave Beringer has never forgotten the intense month he spent with prickly Zara. Their nights together were the first true intimacy he’d ever experienced. But the discovery of his child is the shock of a lifetime, and his ugly past puts relationships and family out of reach.
Or does it? Vermont’s countryside has a way of nurturing even tortured souls. The fields and the orchards—and hard won love—are Bountiful.

Bountiful is up there as one of my faves from Sarina Bowen’s True North series and this time around she has subtly blended it with her Brooklyn Bruisers and taken us back to Vermont for an engaging romance, filled with heart and a couple to cheer on from the moment you meet them. There’s no middle ground when it comes to me and a “surprise! you’re a dad,” story, you win or you lose and and this was a winner.

Two weeks ago I’d driven to Vermont with very different ideas about how my vacation—and my life—were supposed to go.”

If you’re familiar with the True North series, Zara Rossi will be no stranger, and Keepsake saw her knocked for six by the arrival of a handsome man with copper coloured hair—funnily enough the same shade as her baby daughter, Nicole. There was a story there to be told.

I was her dirty little secret, apparently. Best. Thing. Ever.”

And tell it Sarina does, taking us right back to the summer when NHL player Dave Beringer spent several sex-fuelled weeks in Vermont with Zara and who, unknowingly, left her with a permanent reminder the passionate nights they shared. Which is where the crossover comes into play, because if you’ve read the Brooklyn Bruisers series, you’ll have briefly met Dave, although we were never privy to his hair colour or first name.

…she liked me as just a guy in her bar. I didn’t have to be that star and impress her.

This is what made Bountiful the story it was, it remained true to its rural setting and family-centric roots and Dave was simply a guy getting his head round the fact that he returned to see the woman who rocked his world, only to discover an adorable tiny little version of them both toddling around. And whilst Zara has her moments, because she’s guarded and can run a little hot and cold, I did love her honesty and the fact that the situation is what it is, she wants her daughter to get to know her dad all whilst fighting with her own heart and the fact that he will once again have to leave at the end of the summer.

Our days of wild sex together are over.”

This was actually a very simple story, but it was the heart and emotion it holds as Zara and Dave get to really know one another, along with those little moments that just make you melt as he steps up to the mark as a dad, and the wonder of what the future has in store, that prove that when executed right, even the simplest of stories can bring the most enjoyable of reading experiences. And, with an abundance of single characters including Zara’s brothers, Dave’s sister, more Shipley’s, a baker, and a particular Bruisers player who I loved, my spidey senses have detected a few future possibilities, irrespective of series, that I really hope Sarina will run with.