First and foremost, I ADORE allllll of Amy Clipston’s novels! She is a whiz at building up the characters of the story and not having so many, you get lost along the way. That is a BIG reason why I love what she writes! She doesn’t stray from one character to the next all the while making you completely get lost. She stays on one storyline and you end up falling in love with it/them along the way.

I’ve been patiently waiting for the opportunity to snag this book to review as soon as I saw her working in it via social media. It is SO good!!! Oh my goodness, clean, romantic fiction that makes you turn pages until you are finished - which is exactly what I did and it took me about 48 hours to finish it. Grab a copy of this sweet story of love and redemption. You sit there and wonder how it will end and literally won’t know until you are on the final pages.

A great summer poolside read!

The Heart of Splendid Lake was a sweet, predictable romance about a family who tries to save their family resort after the patriarch dies of a sudden heart attack. Although Brianna is the youngest in the family, she’s the one who stays at Splendid Lake to run the resort with her parents. After her dad dies, she has to get creative in how she’s going to save the resort from being foreclosed after her dad leaves a financial mess. In the process, she meets an investor and she has to decide what her future will look like.
The problems of the storyline are intense and messy, as are the characters, but The Heart of Splendid Lake will leave you with a smile.

The Heart Of Splendid Lake, by Amy Clipston, tells the tale of Brianna Porter, the youngest in her family, who has decided to stay in her hometown of Splendid Lake, North Carolina. When her father suddenly passes away, Brianna is left not only with her grief, but also with the mess left behind!

Hold on to see how Brianna not only holds everything together, not also finds the love of her life along the way!

This is a book about real-life, which means that it's messy and the characters are messy. No one really falls into the good guy or bad guy heading...it's all grey area. Brianna's life is undergoing massive change, with her dad's passing and then a few other emergencies that arise as a result of that, and what happens is ultimately that she experiences massive internal change herself...re-evaluating her priorities as she matures. I feel like the author tries to cast one of the guys as bad, and one of them as good, but it's just not as simple...and we all know that the happily ever after really depends on where you stop the story. I prefer Clipston's Amish fiction to this one.

I received The Heart of Splendid Lake as part of a NetGalley giveaway.

Brianna Porter is blindsided by her father's sudden death and the dire financial straits he left their family in. In order to save their small family resort from ruin, she finds herself accepting help from Scott Gibson, a real estate investor interested in the property. Despite her initial contempt for the idea, Brianna slowly begins to appreciate Scott's calm presence and assistance in repairing the resort for the coming summer season. But Brianna is engaged and Scott is the enemy...isn't he?

This one wasn't for me. It was a lot of typical romance tropes: small town untouched by tourism that can somehow support a year-round Christmas store, sickly sweet characters that I was supposed to love but couldn't stand (Brianna and her mother in particular), with every plotline clearly telegraphed from page 1. I don't know, I just prefer romance that doesn't involve perfect, saintly martyrs, and that's what we have here. If you unironically love Hallmark movies, you'll probably dig this. If you're looking for some nuance and depth, probably not.

THE HEART OF SPLENDID LAKE by AMY CLIPSTON is a most enjoyable romance novel that takes place at Splendid Lake, North Carolina.
Brianna is the youngest of the three Porter sisters, and, instead of going to college like her sisters and her fiancé Taylor did, she has chosen to stay at home and help her parents run their resort. She is particularly close to her father and shares his love of cars, boats and fishing. The day he dies of a heart attack she meets Scott Gibson whose real estate firm wants to put in an offer on the property.
It is a story about relationships, family dynamics and the choices people make.
I highly recommend The Heart Of Splendid Lake as a really good read.
I was given a free copy of the book by NetGalley from Thomas Nelson. The opinions in this review are completely my own.