When I was in high school, I spent a mid-winter week on Isle of Palms, one of the islands off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. It is on one such island that Rochelle Alers’ new Cavanaugh Island series is set — a pre-development Southern island small town. I can easily see the opinions on this book falling along the Small Town Romance lines: if you like the pace of small towns in stories, you’ll like this; if you don’t, you’ll spend most of this book rolling your eyes.

Deborah Robinson’s schoolteacher husband, went from being a local pariah, after being accused of impregnating a student, to a local hero, after dying while saving a drowning boy. Sick of the drama in her hometown of Charleston, Deborah moves herself and her children to the house she inherited on Cavanaugh Island. It is here that she re-opens the Parlor Bookstore, which she closed when she left Charleston.

Dr. Asa Monroe is an unlikely shop assistant, but after his wife and son died in a car accident, he had been wandering — and getting bored. So when he saw that the attractive woman he’s seen around town is hiring, he volunteers. Thus begins the friendship, and eventually romance, between the two. Asa’s stay on the Island, though, is temporary, as he is awaiting orders from Doctors Without Borders. But with two teenage children and a small business, Deborah is definitely sticking around.

The writing is simple and straightforward, which was a bit of a problem for me, as I prefer to have to think a little bit while I’m reading. It goes back to the adage “show, don’t tell.” Ms. Alers is definitely a teller, not a shower — and occasionally repetitive, too. Asa’s internal monologue noted at least three times that Deborah was the first woman since his wife to whom he’d been attracted, if not four.

I did enjoy the romance between them, which developed slowly and naturally. Each had very understandable hesitations, given their widowed states, but their attraction was tangible and believable. I was quite disappointed with the ending, though, which I felt cheapened their mutual love and respect. It resorted to a gimmick that shouldn’t have been necessary to reunite the two.

This was definitely a pro-small town novel, which I’m not crazy about, but nor do I actively dislike. Despite a diatribe against the moral, economic, and environmental evils of land developers, it was mostly subtle. This book is not straight contemporary; it has shades of Inspirational and Women’s fiction as well. The secondary characters were of mixed quality. Some, like Deborah’s children, were interesting, believable, and likable; others, like some of the townspeople, went a few steps too far toward caricature status, like the elderly town historian/busybody who likes nothing other than to gossip about the townspeople.

All in all, it is a decent story, and easy to read; this is not one of those C-graded books that was a chore to get through. I gave it a C+ because it is one of those easily read, easily forgotten books that doesn’t stay in your head five minutes past putting it down.