Readers who are sick of contemporary romances set in small towns won’t want to read any further, as this contemporary is set smack in the middle of rural America. I liked the hero and heroine, but would have liked more focus on them and a few less subplots.

Sophie McPhee had it all, a successful bakery and catering business in San Francisco and a handsome husband with his own successful career in TV news. When Sophie discovered that her husband was having an affair with a colleague, she sold her business and moved back home to live with her mother at the family ranch in rural Montana.

Sophie isn’t a heroine who wallows in misery for months on end. Seemingly within days of moving back home, she decides to open a bakery in town. Sophie also begins to reconnect with childhood friends, and through one of them, runs into her first major crush, Rafe Tanner.

I like romances in which the hero and heroine have a long history, and Sophie and Rafe definitely have a cute back history. Growing up, Sophie was best friends with Rafe’s younger sister. Sophie and her friend spied on Rafe causing him endless embarrassment as he made his way through most of the girls in their high school. Early in her teens, Sophie threw herself at the much older Rafe, only to be rejected.

Rafe isn’t interested in rejecting Sophie now, and feels a quick attraction. But Rafe also isn’t the player he was in high school. Rafe’s ex-wife abandoned him and their young daughter, and he’s busy trying to raise the adolescent on his own, as well as run his ranch.

Sophie and Rafe’s relationship develops very slowly. Sophie’s hesitancy to get involved despite her attraction to Rafe was realistic. She feels she made a mistake with her marriage, and is reluctant to jump into another relationship too soon.

Sophie and Rafe had a lot of potential, and some of the secondary characters – in particular Rafe’s daughter and Sophie’s mother – were interesting. However, I found there were too many subplots that ultimately detracted from Rafe and Sophie’s relationship. Rafe’s daughter is keeping secrets from her father, Sophie is the victim of vandalism from a man seeking revenge, and Sophie’s mother is involved in a relationship that Sophie doesn’t like. Then we have the meddlers. Sophie’s grandmother and all the other ladies in town are determined to hook Sophie up with all the eligible men in town. After taking up more time than I cared for, the vandalism subplot resolved almost too quickly.

The couple from the next book was introduced rather heavy handedly in the last few pages, at a time when I’d have preferred to concentrate on Sophie and Rafe’s happiness. While I liked Sophie and Rafe, I closed the book feeling that I had been a bit short-changed as far as their relationship, and their HEA.