(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

The mysterious death of her mother has left Charlotte Simmons on edge and off-balance for too long. The only way to move forward is to get answers, and those answers can only be found in one place. So Charlotte buys a Bed & Breakfast establishment in Swallow’s Falls, a small town in Australia’s Snowy Mountains, as a ploy to get close to the man who might have the answers. She’ll jazz up the old place, flip it, get her answers, and be gone in two-months – max.
What she doesn’t count on is opposition from the dogmatic and slightly eccentric members of the town council, and the hotshot owner of Kookaburra’s Bar & Grill and his two-hundred-squats-a-day physique whose mouth offers to act as mediator, but his eyes promise something so much more.
Easy-going Daniel Bradford knows progress is slow in Swallow’s Fall. He’s finally about to put his plans into place to upgrade the hotel when a prim-and-proper, citified redhead blows into town, putting everyone on edge. The only way to contain the trouble she’s about to cause is to contain her – but he knows trouble when he sees it, and soon it becomes very clear that there’s absolutely nothing containable about Charlotte, or the way he feels about her.

This is the third book in the Swallows Fall series. It is the first one I have read.

I really wanted to love this story - I really did. Don't get me wrong, I like it just fine - there are some great points to this story, for sure. Let's go to the tape:

* Great location and descriptions. Captures the essence of an Australian small town.
* Characters that just leap from the page and draw you into their lives
* Dialogue that is true and authentic - especially in rural Australia - and takes us along through the good and bad, emotions that range from fun and happy to miserable and sad.
* The romance - although it was a bit cheesy at times, it didn't feel terribly forced or uncomfortable

All really good aspects of the story...

...but there was one thing that really stopped me from falling in love with this story - and that was the REASON for the conflict that drives this story. It just felt such a small thing for such an important aspect of the story. Maybe these sorts of things happen in small communities but I just found it hard not to roll my eyes and tell them all to just wake up to themselves...

Overall, I would recommend this book, despite the negative comments. It is a great novel about small town Australia and the people who populate these communities.


Paul
ARH