First Date: Divorce

Finished January 2

First Date: Divorce by Patricia McLinn

This book is the first book in the series The Wyoming Marriage Association. 

I've read books in three other series by this author and enjoyed them. I chose the book to meet a reading challenge left over from 2025. This book lets us see a variety of viewpoints. The main female character is K.D. Hamilton, a sheriff's deputy from Montana who has been trying to get her boss to let her do investigative work. K.D. was raised by a single mother after her father abandoned the family, and her mother remarried after K.D. left home. She is wary of relationships. She has been lent to the sheriff's office in Bardville, Wyoming and has just arrived at the ranch she was told to come to as the book begins. 

The main male character is Eric Larkin, a lawyer who has been living in Bardville for a short time, having moved there from Chicago after his divorce to be close to a couple of friends and have a fresh start. Along with him has come his assistant, a widowed friend of his mother's. The assistant is on the ball and trying to get Eric to be more social. Eric has kept to himself for the most part, except for his friends, the sheriff and a private investigator who is ex-FBI. 

The situation is a local business just outside of town, who is leasing a county-owned building and operating as a luxury retreat specializing in marriage counselling. A number of couple who stayed there left even more determined to split up, and they've all had one person who engaged a local lawyer for a divorce. Before renewing the lease, the county wants to ensure there isn't anything shady going on. 

K.D. and Eric will pose as a married couple who've been separated a while, but are attempting a reconciliation. Since Eric has kept to himself, no one in town outside of his friends is aware that he's divorced. There is a tight timeline, and they have to create a backstory complete with photographic evidence, so a few ranching women come together to stage wedding and other couple photographs. As K.D. gets involved, she learns more about Eric's ex and why they split. 

The mystery is pretty tame, but the romance has some sizzle. A fun read.

Always You and Me

Finished November 2

Always You and Me by Dani Atkins

This romance novel has a lot of surprises as the plot unwinds. The story moves around in time, but the chapter headings clearly indicate this. The story opens as Lily is with her husband Adam in hospice and we learn why he is there and the story of his illness and death.

It then jumps forward a year and we see Lily thinking about one of the promises that she made to Adam that she still hasn't followed up on, tracking down her former best friend Josh, hearing his story, and mending their friendship. Lily was very hurt by Josh's action of ending their friendship on the eve of her wedding with Adam, and we gradually learn details of what happened around that time. Since then he's disappeared from her life, and she hasn't even heard anything about him. She's not even sure where to start.

The book jumps back in time then to the beginning of Josh and Lily's friendship and the way that Lily bridged Josh's walls to become an important person in his life. As we see their history unfold, we see the special relationship that they had. 

We also see how Adam came into Lily's life and into her heart, and how special their relationship was. As the real story of these relationships and the rift in Lily's friendship is explained, we see the choices that these people made and the ones that Lily and Josh face now.

A moving novel.