Susan Crandall, A Kiss in Winter

A Kiss in Winter

Susan Crandall

Warner, January 2007, $6.99, 416 pp.

ISBN 0446616400

Caroline Rogers gave up her dreams to raise her brother and sister after her adopted parents died within days of each other. She sold the family farm and got a job photographing special occasions and freelance work like a state calendar. When she sees someone move into the Rogers' farm Caroline wants to know who it is and if he will keep the spread in good condition, because some of her happiest memories happened there.

Dr. Mick Larsen, a psychiatrist turned farmer, informs Caroline that he is going to work the land. He is running from his past because he realized he never wanted to be a doctor, and only did so to please his father. A tragedy convinced him he was not a good doctor. Mick and Caroline feel an immediate chemistry between them, but she wants to travel for national Geographic when her sister goes to college, and he wants a partner who will love him and give him children, something Caroline is afraid to do. They are drawn closer together when they realize Caroline has a stalker who is escalating in violence, and his targets are tied to the pictures on the calendar she photographed. Yet a relationship for these two star-crossed lovers seems impossible.

This is a fetching and moving romantic family drama that is well written and focuses on characters that are very realistic and likeable. The heroine is afraid to love after she has seen what it did to her biological mother, and the hero needs love of which he never got from his father. Susan Crandall is so talented that readers will want to read her backlist, because A KISS IN WINTER is everything a contemporary romance reader wants in a book.