Last Chance Knit & Stitch - Hope Ramsay (Forever - Nov 2013)

Series: Last Chance (Book 6)

Molly Canaday wishes she could repair her life as easily as she fixes cars. She was all set to open her own body shop in Last Chance when her mother ran off and left her to manage the family yarn shop instead. Now guided by the unsolicited-though well-intended-advice of the weekly knitting club, Molly works to untangle this mess. But her plan unravels when the new landlord turns out to be difficult-as well as tall, dark, and handsome.

Simon Wolfe returns to quickly settle his father's estate and then leave Last Chance for good. Still wounded by a broken heart, Simon is surprised when the town's charming streets and gentle spirit bring back good memories. Soon the beautiful, strong-willed Molly sparks a powerful attraction that tempts him to break his iron-clad no-commitment rule. Can Simon and Molly find a way to share work space-and build a future together in Last Chance?

Good book. Molly has been pretty content with her life. She enjoys her work as a mechanic and has plans to open her own body shop as soon as she sells the car she's restoring now. Her creative side is satisfied by her knitting. Then everything goes to hell when her mother runs away from home, leaving Molly in charge of the knitting shop and running things at home. The local banker is  holding the car she's restoring hostage, and the building she wanted for her business is suddenly leased to someone else.

Simon has returned to Last Chance to settle his father's estate. He hasn't been home since he argued with his parents about following his own path. The memories he has of Last Chance aren't the best. His parents were always fighting when he was a kid and he got caught in the middle. He was present at the death of his best friend. Now he just wants to settle things and go home to California. He is an artist who has a major commission to finish and it isn't going well. He doesn't expect to feel an attraction to Molly, who was just a child when he left.

Both Molly and Simon have some pretty major parental issues going on. Molly is in her twenties, still living at home, and dealing with her parents' expectations.  When her mom takes off, Molly is expected to step right in and take over. Mom has never approved of Molly's dreams for her car restoration business and constantly tries to change Molly into what she wants. Meanwhile, after several years as a child being treated like a son by her father, when her brothers were born she was suddenly expected to turn into a girly girl. She tries hard to make people understand who she is, but it's an uphill battle. Simon has returned to deal with his father's death. He's dealing with a boatload of guilt because they never mended fences, but he isn't sorry that he stood up for himself. When he arrives home it's to discover that his mother suffers from dementia and most of the time doesn't recognize him. Even when she does, she treats him badly. 

When Molly and Simon first meet, there is some antagonism. But there are also sparks. Simon offers her space in his building where she can work on her car while he works on his painting. They find themselves getting closer and building a friendship that slowly starts to develop into something more. Each of them resists the idea because neither is interested in commitment. They also have to deal with a whole bunch of interference from various members of the town. Everyone is trying to push Molly into a relationship with her friend Les and she doesn't care for him that way. And both of them are getting a boatload of grief from Molly's father, who had also been Simon's football coach. He keeps harping on the age difference between Molly and Simon and refuses to see that it shouldn't make any difference. I got really angry at the way everyone seemed to cave in to Coach's wishes when he was being so obnoxious.

I loved seeing how great Molly and Simon were with and for each other. Simon understood just what made Molly the person she was. He loved the contrasts in her personality, from her ability with cars to her knitting creativity. He also was able to see when she needed the closeness of his touch. I also liked the way he supported her choices by giving her the space to use. The only thing I didn't like was the way he let Coach talk to him. On her side, Molly saw past the shell that Simon showed to everyone else in town. She didn't like the way that they all treated him, especially once she got to know him better. I loved the scene where she talked him into playing hooky, and then he got her to go skinny dipping. Things really started to heat up between them at that point. They had so much going for them if they could just get up the backbone to go after what they wanted. There was a very nice twist to the ending, as both Simon and Molly realized what they wanted and what they had to do.

I loved visiting the town of Last Chance again and seeing old and new friends. Miriam, and now Savannah, are still making their ambiguous matchmaking predictions. The book club is still arguing over its selections. I especially enjoyed the scenes in the knit shop. The Purly Girls knitting group was fun to watch. I could also easily picture the chaos created by the toddler who was running wild. One of my favorite characters was Angel, Simon's assistant. He was so quickly absorbed and accepted by most of the town, despite his differences. I especially loved his involvement in so many things that benefited by his touch. He was such a people person that he was a delight to watch. I also loved the way that he was the one who was able to get through to Simon and get him back where he belonged. I really hope to see more of him in later books.

Welcome to Last Chance - Hope Ramsay (Forever - Feb 2011)

Series: Last Chance (Book 1)

WELCOME TO LAST CHANCE, SOUTH CAROLINA

Dear Reader,

Yes, our town is way off the beaten path, but strange, wonderful miracles happen a lot around here.

I've owned the Cut 'n' Curl beauty shop for years, and I've seen folks come for a visit, then stay for a lifetime. Take Jane-that pretty firecracker of a girl who just arrived in town. I would swear she's running from something. She came with only five dollars in her pocket but she's worked real hard to make a fresh start. She's turned my son Clay's life upside down without even realizing it.

And thank goodness for that! Ever since Clay left his country western band, he's played everything too safe. He needs to take a chance on Jane. Besides, the more he tries to keep his distance, the more he'll realize that he and Jane are singing the same tune.

But I should quit ramblin' and go check on Millie's permanent wave. Next time you're in Last Chance, be sure to swing by. We've got hot rollers, free coffee, and the best gossip in town.

See you real soon,

Ruby Rhodes

This was a fun book to read.  Right at the beginning it seems like both Jane and Clay are hot messes. Jane has come to Last Chance to make a new start to her life after some bad choices.  Clay is the first person she meets and proceeds to perhaps continue those bad choices.  Clay came back to his hometown after things didn't go so well in Nashville and now feels like he's stuck in neutral.

Jane was screwed over by her latest boyfriend who ended up stealing all her money instead of helping her make it big in Nashville.  Now she's arrived in Last Chance with five dollars to her name and a determination to turn her life around.  She has become a believer in positive thinking and hopes that it will be enough to see her through.  She goes to the local bar in hopes that some nice guy will buy her a meal and offer her a sofa to sleep on.  The first one she sees is Clay who is playing his fiddle with the band.  He wears his hair long, in a pony tail, and is very good looking.  She thinks he looks like a bad boy and has resolved to stay away from them.  But beggars can't be choosers and she ends up doing more than sleeping on his sofa, which they both regret in the morning.  Through a strange series of events, Jane is offered a job by Clay's mom, cutting hair and doing nails in her salon, and watching her grandchildren in the afternoons.  It comes with a rent free apartment, so things are looking up.  She still has an inconvenient attraction to Clay going on, but she tries to resist that.  Jane also has some trouble in her past that she has been trying to outrun for seven years.  Some of that trouble is about to catch up with her in both a funny and heartbreaking way.  I really liked Jane's determination to make her life better.  She also wants to do it on her own, not depend on a white knight to rescue her.  She's falling for Clay but he can't seem to make up his mind what he wants.  When it comes to things going her way, Jane can't seem to catch a break, to the point where she's even been accused of murdering herself.  While she is pretty down on herself for most of the book, by the end she has begun to see that things aren't so bad after all.  I really loved the way she took charge at the end and saved Haley and herself.

Clay is basically a nice guy.  He doesn't look like it, but he is.  He is a good son to his momma, a good brother and uncle, a great friend to his handicapped buddy and even plays organ in church on Sundays.  He left Last Chance after high school with his girlfriend, where they went to Nashville.  He became a pretty good songwriter and fiddle player and had a band.  His girlfriend left him for a rich record producer, breaking his heart.  When he finally moved on from that and found a new love, she left him for the lead singer in the band.  All the women seem to find him a better friend than lover.  So he quits the band and goes home to Last Chance.  He's just going from day to day there, feeling like there's something missing but not really doing anything about it, until Jane walks into the bar.  He falls into instant lust with her which he regrets in the morning.  All he really wants at that point is to get her on the road out of town, but the fates intervene there.  She doesn't want to go and when his mom offers her a job she stays.  Clay has decided it's past time for him to settle down, but Jane is certainly not the type of woman he's looking for.  The local matchmaker tells him that his soulmate will arrive in town on the 9:30 bus - the same one Jane arrived on.  Over the next couple nights, the two women from his past show up on that same bus and he's more confused than ever.  What's really interesting is that Clay can't seem to stay away from Jane, though he really started to bug me at times.  First he'd be really supportive of her, then he'd believe every bad thing he was told, then back to support.  I was happy to see him get it together at the end.  There are also times when I found him to be a little over emotional and wanted to smack him and tell him to man up.  A little bit went a long way.

Being a small southern town, Last Chance has its share of truly quirky characters.  There's Ruby, mom to all the Rhodes and owner of the salon and gossip headquarters.  She is a true steel magnolia, running her family with mostly sweetness with the occasional application of a baseball bat.  The local church ladies who have their fingers in everything and have no trouble letting people know when they've slipped off the straight and narrow path.  The police chief, who is this book is a humorless pain with a stick up his butt.  He's borderline abusive to Jane and refuses to believe her when she tells him the truth about who she is.  I was glad to see him have to admit he was wrong.  I loved Clay's friend Ray and had fun seeing him try to help Clay pick a wife.  The arrivals of Clay's two exes added a bit of extra stress to Clay as he tried to figure out what to do about Jane.  Young Haley and her "Sorrowful Angel" is a regular in several of the books.  And the zaniest "character" of all is the Golfing for God mini golf course and its huge part in the conclusion of the book.

Last Chance Book Club - Hope Ramsay (Forever - Apr 2013)

Series: Last Chance (Book 5)

After a painful divorce, Savannah White wants nothing more than to find her happy place. So when she gets the chance to pack up her life -and her son - and move to the idyllic town where she spent childhood summers, she jumps at the opportunity. Last Chance is just as charming as she remembered. She's even invited to join the local book club, where talk soon turns to Savannah's plan to bring the ramshackle downtown movie theater back to life. A new challenge is just what Savannah needs to move forward.. . .

Dash Randall wants to put his fortune to good use, but he remembers Savannah as the bratty "princess" who descended upon him each June, causing no end of trouble. But the teenager he remembered has grown into a gorgeous and generous woman, and it isn't long before Dash finds himself wanting to make brand new memories with Savannah. But first, Dash and Savannah will need to make peace with their pasts to find a new chance for love.

This was a lovely return to the town of Last Chance, South Carolina.  Savannah really wanted to get herself  and her son out of Baltimore, so when her uncle died she and Todd left to go to his funeral.  What she didn't tell anyone was that they were going to move there permanently.  Both Savannah's mother and ex-mother-in-law were very controlling and she has had enough.  She also wants to get Todd into a healthier atmosphere. Savannah is planning to renovate the old theater that she inherited. She doesn't expect to run into her old childhood nemesis Dash.  The two of them had never gotten along, but now he's living with her aunt also.  They start out with sparks still flying between them, but now there's a different kind of heat in those sparks.  Savannah is very independent and very stubborn.  When Dash offers to help her out with the theater she resists.  One thing she can't resist is the interest he takes in her son.  Dash becomes just the role model and father figure that Todd needs.  I really enjoyed seeing Savannah take more control of her life once she got to Last Chance.  She had really let her mom and ex-in-law get to her before, but she develops a good amount of self-confidence once on her own. I liked the slow building of the romantic relationship between Savannah and Dash. The more time she spends with Dash the more she starts to feel for him.  Just as their relationship starts to take off her new life in Last Chance is threatened.

Dash came back to Last Chance after his baseball career ended.  He had partied too hard, gotten drunk too often, and messed up his knee in an accident.  He has finally gotten sober and is now heavily involved in life in Last Chance, owning a business and doing a lot of volunteer work.  Ever since he was a teenager he has been in love with Hettie, who had a brief teenage thing with him then moved on.  Now he has a tendency to moon over her and do things he thinks she'd like.  He's really not happy to see Savannah move back to Last Chance.  He remembers her as a spoiled brat who was constantly getting him into trouble.  It doesn't take too long for him to realize that she has changed and for attraction to start him taking a new look at his life.  At first he doesn't really want to help Savannah with the theater but he eventually wants to give her a chance to follow her dream.  He also realizes, being a few years older now, that his problem with her had been plain old jealousy of having to share his aunt and uncle with her.  I loved seeing him let go of his obsession with Hettie and pursue his attraction to Savannah.  It was interesting seeing him compare her to an addiction and try to fight it.  Another thing I liked was seeing the changes he goes through as he helps Todd settle in at Last Chance.  I loved seeing the way that his feelings for Savannah change and grow.  His desire to help her is something new for him and I loved the way it made him feel.  His feelings for her really came out at the end when he was there for her and Todd.

I loved seeing more of the characters from previous Last Chance books.  Savannah's aunt is the matchmaker that has been so important in earlier books.  In this one we get to see more of her and learn about her methods.  She also has quite an interesting plan for Savannah.  Hettie, "The Queen Bee" has an important role in this book and has an interesting twist come her way at the end.  

As usual there are some pretty funny moments in this book that can shed some light on various characters.  In this one, the dinner that included the minister, Aunt Miriam, Dash, Savannah and Todd turned out to be pretty funny.  Todd was great as the rebellious teenager and gave Dash one of his early chances to influence Todd's behavior.  I loved seeing Dash be semi-parental, but he also showed his fun and empathetic side.  

The havoc created by Todd's dog at the frog jumping contest was great too.  Besides the confusion we also got a more up close look at Savannah's mom and ex-in-law who showed up unexpectedly.  This gave Savannah a chance to show her newly developed backbone.  I loved seeing her tell them off, though there was also some indication that there could be trouble ahead.  

Last Chance Christmas - Hope Ramsay (Forever - Sept 2012)

Series: Last Chance (Book 4)

Dear Reader,
I've been wishing for a miracle for my oldest boy, Stone, and this Christmas my prayers might just be answered!

Her name is Lark, and she's here in Last Chance, looking into her father's past-and stirring up a whole mess of trouble without meaning to. As the chief of police, Stone sure has his hands full trying to keep up with her. Ever since his wife died, Stone's put everything into raising his daughters and dodging the Christ Church Ladies' Auxiliary matchmakers. And it's clear Lark has been through some trouble and could use a place to finally call home. I only hope Stone can let go of the past soon enough to keep her . . . Goodness, I need to stop talking and finish up Jane's highlights so we can make the town tree-lighting. You come back by because the Cut 'n' Curl's got hot rollers, free coffee, fresh-baked Christmas cookies-and the best gossip in town.

See you real soon,
Ruby Rhodes

Very good book.  Lark has come to Last Chance to scatter her father's ashes at the Golfing for God putt-putt course.  She doesn't understand why, but it was his last request so that's what she'll do.  When she arrives she discovers that there are some roadblocks to carrying out her plans.  Her father was not the most popular guy to have visited the town and there are secrets that are about to be stirred up.  She needs to get permission from multiple people to fulfill her father's wishes.  And the local police chief isn't any too happy about the trouble she's stirring up.  Stone is a widower who is having trouble moving on.  His wife was his soulmate and he feels lost without her.  He's raising his two daughters, teenage Lizzy and seven year old Haley.  Haley has been talking about the "sorrowful angel" she has been seeing since the death of her mother.  Having Lark show up in town is creating problems for him.  Some people want him to run her out of town and others are glad she's there.  Being around her is waking up feelings that make him feel guilty but also seem to be filling a hole in his life.  Working together they uncover the secrets that have created problems for their families and bring them to the light of day.  There's also a modern murder that ends up being tied to some of the same people. 

Lark plans to spread her father's ashes and get back to her work as a war correspondent/photojournalist.  Part of her troubles is that she is suffering from some PTSD because of her last job.  A friend died as she was taking pictures and she hasn't been able to use her camera since then.  Taking care of her father has given her a break, but she still hasn't recovered.  Meeting Stone puts a crimp in her plans as he explains the problems.  Her father is blamed for the death of his grandfather and there are a lot of people who don't want to help her.  At first Stone is among them.  Lark finds some that are willing to talk to her and help her take care of her father's ashes.  She also finds herself increasingly attracted to Stone, even though there's no future in it.  I loved the way that just being around Stone started to lessen her trauma.  She also found that she could talk to him about anything, including those bad memories.  He understood and didn't try to judge or advise, he just listened.  I also loved her reaction to life in the small town, something she had never experienced before.  It really didn't take long before she started to fit in to the whole community.  I especially loved seeing her with Stone's daughters.  She knew just what to say to Haley about Santa and her angel, and she was just as great with Lizzy.  I loved the way her independence and experience saved Lizzy and David at the end.  Her fears nearly kept her from going after what she wanted, until she admitted to herself that she wanted the love she had seen all around Last Chance.

Stone has been getting by for the last six years since the death of his wife.  He has his family around to help and support him but he misses his wife.  He is frustrated by his youngest daughter's constant talk of her angel.  When Lark arrives in Last Chance he senses that she is bringing a whole bunch of trouble with her.  He's heard about how her father was responsible for his grandfather's death for years.  He knows his father will never agree to her spreading those ashes at the golf course, though it isn't entirely up to him.  He tells her about how she will have to get permission from others too.  He really hopes she'll just give up and leave.  It doesn't take long before her presence starts making waves and people are telling him to run her out of town.  He soon realizes that that's the last thing he wants.  I loved seeing him get to know Lark and see the woman behind the tough facade.  I also loved the way his feelings for her were growing but he was so unsure about what to do about it.  He's the strong, silent type but also somewhat vulnerable.  It was sweet seeing the way he kind of bumbled his way around asking her out and taking her places.  I also loved the way he tried to protect them both from the gossips of the town, but ended up right in the middle of it anyway.  I really enjoyed seeing him finally let go of his past and how Haley and her "angel" were part of it.  I must admit that I had my suspicions about that angel from the beginning and was very happy to see that I was right.  I enjoyed his conversation with the "matchmaker" who gives advice and how it also opened his eyes to the possibilities for his future.  

Besides the terrific romance elements of the book, I really enjoyed the whole small town setting.  All the characters are realistic and not cutesy at all.  Lark's arrival brought out some of the less savory history of being a small Southern town in the sixties.  Part of the mystery involving Lark's father was rooted in his actions with an African-American woman and the segregation that was still being practiced.  There was a very interesting twist to that story at the end.  Stone also had to deal with a murder that happened just outside town, getting the county sheriff involved.  By the end of the book that mystery is solved in a surprising way.  There was a sweet teen romance involving Lizzy and a classmate, a Jewish boy that is dealing with some bullying by a teenaged bigot.  I really loved Lizzy's attitude, though she was certainly good at pushing her dad's buttons.  Lizzy and David found themselves in the middle of some serious danger and it was David who came through for Lizzy.  There was a lot of excitement at the golf course that day and a couple very interesting plot twists.  I'm really looking forward to reading the next book.