Category Archives: Stephanie Bond

Title: Baby, Come Home by Stephanie Bond
Southern Roads Book 2
Publisher: Harlequin Mira
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Length: 336 pages
Book Rating: B

Review Copy Obtained from Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

The hardheaded Armstrong brothers are determined to rebuild their tornado-ravaged hometown in the Georgia mountains. They’ve got the means, they’ve got the manpower…what they need are women! So they place an ad in a Northern newspaper and wait for the ladies to arrive.…

Sensible yet sexy middle brother Kendall Armstrong penned that ad himself—but there’s just one woman he really wants to answer the call.…

Civil engineer Amy Bradshaw—Kendall’s ex-fiancée—fled Sweetness years ago, taking a precious souvenir with her. She’s back
now…but only on a professional level. Really.

Little does she know that old flames always burn the hottest.…

The Review:

Baby, Come Home by Stephanie Bond is the second installment of the Southern Roads series. It picks up a few months after Baby, Drive South ends and a great deal of progress has been made in Sweetness. The town is growing by leaps and bounds as the families and children of the transplanted women have arrived in Sweetness. Marcus Armstrong decides to play matchmaker for his brother Kendall when he hires Kendall’s ex-girlfriend Amy Bradshaw to rebuild the town’s old-fashioned covered bridge. Passion still burns between Amy and Kendall but past secrets and misunderstandings threaten their future.

Amy is still drawn to Kendall despite her bitterness over their breakup twelve years earlier. She has some self-esteem issues that skew her viewpoint of her relationship with Kendall and the town of Sweetness. Although she is self-assured and confident in her career, her return to her childhood town brings her feelings of inadequacy back to life. And the fact that she is hiding a secret from Kendall causes her to try to keep him at arm’s length.

Kendall is the levelheaded brother who often finds himself in the role of peacemaker between his two brothers. He has never gotten over Amy, his first love, and he is beyond disappointed that she is not one of the women who relocates to Sweetness in response to his newspaper ad. Kendall’s abysmal communication skills lead to heartache along with many past and present misunderstandings with Amy.

While Baby, Come Home is an enjoyable read, be warned there are some exasperating and predictable plot points. The problems between Amy and Kendall are a direct result of a severe lack of communication and both characters are guilty of poor communication skills. Amy’s low self-esteem and dislike of small town living becomes repetitive.

Despite these few frustrating issues, Baby, Come Home by Stephanie Bond is a fast-paced and entertaining novel. It will be interesting to see the growth that Sweetness makes in the next novel of the Southern Roads series. And I have to admit that I am dying to see what Ms Bond has in store for Marcus in the final book of this charming trilogy.

My review of Book one of the Southern Roads series, Baby, Drive South, can be found HERE

This review was originally posted at The Readers Roundtable