A review by lmrivas54
Second Chance Charmer by Brighton Walsh

4.0

This is one of those cute flirty stories with a strong southern flair. In this book, parents are called Daddy and Momma no matter how old you are, it’s full of “y’alls” and sweet tea and biscuits with gravy. A small town that was perishing but thanks to Willow Haven’s hard work, she was successful in bringing the town square back to life. Havenbrook was named after Willow’s family and through the generations, there has always been a Haven serving as mayor. Willow’s daddy is the current mayor, and as he only had four daughters, that tradition is now in peril. Willow is working for her father as a general assistant (read that she does all the work while her father plays solitaire in his computer), and she has worked hard for the past five years to bring businesses to the town, filled up empty spaces, spiffed up the streets and brought up the town finances.

On this day, she’s happy because she’s managing the start of a new business in the last remaining empty space in the town square. Even better, the new business will be a bar, very much needed in the town, since the lack of an entertainment and gathering place was bleeding people from their town. Since her father was out of town, she completed the arrangements before he knew about it. It was very well known he wanted to keep his town “clean” and he abhorred anything that would mar his 1950’s vision of what a town should be like. Willow knew it would bring prosperity so she sneaked that business in. The only problem was: it meant that the Walker boys were back in town after an absence of ten years. And one of the Walker boys broke her heart ten years ago when he left her without a goodbye or an explanation.


In the beginning, there was a lot of hate and cursing from Willow to Finn Walker. But when they saw each other for the first time in ten years, all the tingles and chemistry between them exploded again. Finn appeared truly sorry to have left her and he seemed to have missed her a lot. As the book progresses, you realize he had some suspicious push to leave town, and there was some connection with his mother being sick and needing a lot of medical care. He moved all the way to California, found a job and his twin Drew is a genius working the financial market, so they have done good. Now they came back to help their childhood friend Nola establish a bar in town.

As Finn and Drew work in the renovation of the place they bought, a lot of things were happening in town. Willow’s daddy arrived back home and formed a ruckus but the deed was done. So he threw a wrench in the works anywhere he could with the inspections and regulations. Rory, Willow’s eldest sister, who was a goody-two-shows and squealed everything to their daddy was secretly helping the Walker brothers decorate the place, and Finn was slowly but surely winning Willow back. There’s a cute detail, when Willow turned eighteen, they both went to get tattoos; hers was a bird and Finn’s was a willow tree. His nickname for Willow was also Willowtree. As the years of absence passed, on her birthday he was always in a bad way and he compensated adding more roots to his willowtree tattoo. This couple was meant to be and this book was a delicious journey to them renewing their love story.

The story was delightful and entertaining and overall, romantic. And I think it’s going to be a series from the way it ended. One of the other Haven girls is going to get her story, I’m sure! I also hope their daddy gets his comeuppance for being such a jerk.