Title: Until There Was You by Kristan Higgins
Publisher: HQN Books
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Length: 384 pages
Book Rating: A+ and A Recommended Read
Review Copy Obtained from Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
Posey Osterhagen can’t complain. She owns a successful architectural salvaging company, she’s surrounded by her lovable, if off-center, family and she has a boyfriend—sort of. Still, something’s missing. Something tall, brooding and criminally good-looking…something like Liam Murphy.
When Posey was sixteen, the bad boy of Bellsford, New Hampshire, broke her heart. But now he’s back, sending Posey’s traitorous schoolgirl heart into overdrive once again. She should be giving him a wide berth, but it seems fate has other ideas….
The Review:
Until There Was You is a charming romance and Kristan Higgins engages her readers with snappy dialogue, a wicked sense of humor and an unexpected poignancy that will capture your heart.
Cordelia “Posey” Osterhagen and Liam Murphy are not the typical picture perfect romance novel characters. They are down to earth protagonists with real life flaws and weaknesses but that is what makes them so lovable. Posey may not be the most beautiful, most popular or most feminine woman in town, but she is a kindhearted woman with an incredible capacity for love. Posey fell for bad boy Liam back in high school but she has not spent the intervening years pining after the one who got away. She runs a successful architectural salvaging business and is surrounded by a delightful array of friends and family members. While she has yet to meet Mr. Right, she is actively dating when Liam returns to Bellsford with his teenage daughter.
Liam Murphy is the quintessential bad boy who is pretty much reformed but still maintains his slightly dangerous edge that attracts women of all ages. Now a widower, he is an overprotective father whose misguided attempts to interfere with daughter Nicole’s social life often end with hilarious results, but yield touching moments of father/daughter bonding.
Ms. Higgins beautifully builds a relationship between these two unlikely lovers. Casual acquaintances as teenagers, Liam and Posey strike up an unlikely friendship as adults that slowly becomes romantic. When trouble arises in their newfound relationship, Posey shows a great deal of strength and courage when she puts her heart on the line in a gutsy attempt to keep Liam in her life.
Until There Was You is a fun novel with a great deal of emotional depth. Kristan Higgins’s slightly quirky yet well rounded characters bring this marvelous story vividly to life. With a delightfully mushy and highly romantic ending that is absolutely perfect and guaranteed to bring make you cry, Until There Was You is another book destined for the keeper shelf.
