By: Sheila Roberts
Genres: Romance Contemporary
Posted: August 30, 2009
Jamie has just returned to Heart Lake following a brief and abusive marriage to a Los Angeles cop, who enjoyed using his wife as a punching bag. The Chocolate Bar is doing well, thank goodness, and she has sworn off of men, so no worry about personal problems.
Sarah is grieving over her daughter's family moving to upstate New York. She misses her granddaughters, Katie and Adeline, something fierce. Sarah and her husband Sam now have an empty nest for sure, which Sam sees as a new adventure for them.
Emma's Quilt Corner isn't making ends meet, but Emma doesn't want her family or Jamie and Sarah to know this. She knows that by the first of the year she will have to close her shop and spend the next umpteen years paying off her business loans. Like Jamie, Emma goes home to an empty house at night, but unlike her friend, Emma would love to have a man in her life.
At their weekly chocolate fix Jamie, Sarah, and Emma bemoan the fact that their town is growing too fast and has lost a lot of its charm and friendliness. They come up with the idea of holding a town meeting and suggesting that every citizen do one good deed a day. Sarah holds a cookie making class for four little girls, and this somewhat eases the pain of not seeing Katie and Addie on a daily basis. Jamie befriends two motherless little girls, but their father would like her attention also. Unfortunately, no matter how nice and good looking that he is, he is also a cop, and that's a no-no for Jamie. Emma takes pity on an elderly woman who always forgets her checkbook. This is a good deed Emma can't afford, and the "forgotten" checkbook story is getting old.
But, the good deed idea is catching on in the community, and comes full circle when Emma has a going-out-of-business sale. ANGEL LANE is now the name of the three friend's no-name-street and is also a beautifully written story that is populated with real and charming people.
Book Summary
Keep the heart in Heart Lake.
That’s exactly what three small-town shop owners hope to do when they launch their crazy-ambitious "Have a Heart" campaign—asking neighbors to commit one random act of kindness every day. Emma, Sarah, and Jamie love their lakeside community, but the little town is growing too big too fast, and a doing a good deed never hurt anyone. Or so they thought...
When Emma slashes prices at her quilt shop, practically giving away blankets to anyone who looks vaguely cold, she almost stitches her way into bankruptcy. Sarah’s free cooking class boils down to a hotbed of crime when some punk kid swipes her favorite heirloom. And at Jamie’s chocolate shop, things take a bittersweet turn when a local policeman starts giving her grief, stirring up feelings she’s tried to forget—and slowly melts away her defenses...
With irresistible humor, warmth, affection—and recipes!—author Sheila Roberts serves up a generous, open-hearted story about the friendships we make, the chances we take, and the lives we touch every day.
by: Sheila Roberts
St. Martin's Griffin
October 1, 2009
On Sale: September 29, 2009
Featuring: Jamie; Sarah; Emma
352 pages
ISBN: 0312384823
EAN: 9780312384821
Paperback