Summary
LaVyrle Spencer chronicles the passionate awakening of a country music megastar. Eighteen years ago, Tess McPhail left Wintergreen, Missouri, for Nashville--and never looked back. Now, at 35, after two decades of public adoration--but no love life--Tess comes home to care for her widowed mother, unprepared to handle what awaits her--and her heart. HC: Putnam. (Fiction--Romance) Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review:
"When small-town girl Tess McPhail followed the pull of Nashville's glittering lights, she placed her dreams on becoming a country singer. Eighteen years later, she is a megastar and is caught in a whirlwind of tours, recording sessions, and financial meetings--a whirlwind that crashes to a stop when her sister demands her help in caring for their mother. Angered at her sister's orders, Tess breezes in to town for a month and crashes straight into the past in the form of Kenny Kronek, the boy-next-door `dork' from high school who has been helping her mother. Sparks and tempers fly whenever the two meet, and Tess' professional interest in Kenny's daughter Casey's singing career causes further problems. As Tess relearns how to relate to her family without hiding behind her celebrity, she begins to appreciate the life she left behind and realizes there is a gaping hole in her current lifestyle--a hole that Kenny may be able to fill. Spencer is a consistent New York Times best-seller, and her latest is a Literary Guild Main Selection. Although not as emotionally wrenching as past novels, expect high demand and start counting how many copies your library will need to meet it. --Melanie Duncan"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review:
"Make room on bestseller lists for Spencer's latest heart-warmer about unlikely romance, this time between country-western star Tess McPhail and her old schoolmate Kenny Kronek, formally "a dork of the highest magnitude," now an accountant. When her older sisters demand that she spend four weeks in Wintergreen, Mo., helping their mother recover from hip-replacement surgery, Tess blows into town with a chip on her shoulder, expecting to be treated like the star she is. But Kenny, who lives across the alley and faithfully cares for Tess's mom, isn't at all impressed. Tess scornfully dubs him St. Kenny, but she can't help adoring his daughter, Casey, a teenage tomboy with a gravelly singing voice. The girl helps Tess write a song about the difficulties of returning home, while Kenny continues to annoy with his constant good deedsthat is, until Tess at last notes that Kenny is disturbingly attractive. When it's time to return to Nashville, she realizes she loves him. Easily resolving the quandary of how a small-town mortal might fit into a superstar's life, Spencer promotes Kenny to the position of Tess's money manager. In an ending that is pure fantasy, everybody's dreams come trueincluding those of the phenomenally talented and lucky Casey. Light on plot, and lacking a dashing romantic hero (Kenny is nicey-niceness personified), this novel succeeds on Spencer's talent for making the inevitable entertaining. Literary Guild main selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Book. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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