Sierra Falls is very much an archetypal small town book, something I have to admit that I am finding less and less engaging. It’s not that the writing isn’t good, because it is, but the overwhelming theme is that life is earnest and difficult. And small town women are doormats.

Sorrow Bailey is glad that she was still at home when her father had his stroke, allowing her to support her family and help out with running the family lodge and tavern. This happened when she was a junior in high school, and now in her twenties she still helps out. Her father never regained his full mobility or strength. Still, Bear Bailey likes to hold court and retain the illusion that he is still running things. Sorrow’s mother does what she can, but Sorrow knows she could never run the place on her own.

So she feels trapped in drudgery, only finding peace when she can escape to the kitchen to cook exotic and ethnic food like frittata or salmon with bamboo shoots and green curry. Doing this allows her to escape in her mind to foreign locales. However, rather than use her talent in the kitchen for the tavern, her father turns up his nose at her “highfalutin’ foods.”

Sorrow’s boyfriend, Damien, the son of the town’s largest employer, Simmons Timber, loves riding in to save the day whenever she has a concern, but lately Sorrow has been questioning if she really loves him. Plus sometimes a woman wants to solve her own problems -it gets old being the helpless one.

Of course living in a small community, Sorrow is aware of newcomer Sheriff Billy Preston. He seems sad. Talk around town is that he is a widower and, of course, that explains the haunted look in his eyes. He made a good first impression with Sorrow by simply not commenting on her unique first name. Billy came to Sierra Falls to make a new start after losing his wife. Here in the mountains, away from the reminders, he can find some peace. Of course, Sorrow now unsettles that new found sense of calm.

Even though the lodge is hit with a run of bad luck including storm damage, blocked roads and broken freezers, Sorrow has a new perception of fresh possibilities. It’s all brought on by the discovery of her three times great- grandmother’s letters and her new awareness of Billy.

I know this is nitpicky, but the names really brought me out of the story. The name Sorrow seems like such a heavy burden for anyone to carry. And Billy is such an old fashioned, almost childish name for someone born in the late seventies. Of course I would never grade down on something so trivial, but still it seems to set the tone for the book.

Sorrow has burdens. She is afraid like the Sorrows before her she is destined for a life full of regret and forgotten hopes. While she makes great strides during the book, I questioned why it took her so long. The heaviness of Billy’s loss, especially his guilt, weighed down the book as well. I admit that the trope of two lost people finding each other is not a favorite of mine.

A mystery, the lost letters, and a secondary romance take the focus off the main couple, diluting the romance, even if Sorrow’s sister Laura and the hint of her story captured my imagination. There are hints of joyfulness and flirtations, but not enough to counteract the overall tone of the book. I know some of you enjoy the trials and tribulations of the characters who have to really earn that HEA. If so, then you may enjoy this book more than I did.