Susan Wiggs has a wonderful, readable style, and many of her historicals sit on my keeper shelf. I stopped following her books when she ceased writing historical romance, but recently decided to give her contemporaries a try. Her writing still flows as beautifully as it did in her historicals, but, somehow, the storytelling magic just isn’t there for me. Lakeside Cottage is not a bad book by any stretch, but it does lack that certain something which makes a story unforgettable.

Kate Livingston, a single mom and recently unemployed journalist, has returned to her family’s summer cottage hoping to spend a peaceful summer with her son and get her bearings in life again. Instead, Kate finds herself playing host to a runaway teen and drawing ever closer to JD Harris, her mysterious neighbor.

JD is a military medic hiding out at the lake and seeking refuge from the press after a rescue brought him into the national spotlight. His new relationship with Kate and his friendship with her son brings him a great deal of happiness, but he is wary of her and afraid to let things develop.

The pages fly by as these two dance around each other, and it’s not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Kate and JD are both likable characters, and I enjoyed their story, however, it never moved beyond passive enjoyment for me. There is always just enough distance between the characters and the reader to keep the story from really coming to life.

The blandness of the characters seems to be what creates this distance. Wiggs’ word choice and overall style are wonderful as always, but still not enough to make this pair unforgettable. Kate seems to be merely the stereotypical nurturing and caring heroine – a type that generally does not do much for me. Though she is a single mother, she seems to have led a more charmed and sheltered existence than most, so her struggles probably won’t ring true with most single parents and may even annoy some readers. JD is a good and strong hero, to be sure, but somehow he never lept off the page and into the imagination either. The overall effect is one of reading a modern-day fairytale – it seems lovely, but far away from anything that would actually move me.

While Lakeside Cottage is a decent book and better written than most, it just doesn’t have that special spark to it. It’s the sort of book that will drift through your mind as you read and be forgotten almost as soon as you put it down. For the outrageous price of $7.50, that just isn’t enough to garner a recommendation here. Susan Wiggs is a wonderful writer, and readers, frankly, would be better served by checking out her historical romances, particularly the ones she wrote for HarperMonogram. Now that’s where her magic is.