This highly entertaining romance looks at people in the middle of their working years, with not a second chance relationship, but a first time to see more than friendship. WHAT’S LEFT OF ME is a strange title, I don’t love it, but this reflects how widowed mother Kate Belshaw feels about herself. Kate dropped out of college to marry, as a baby was on the way, and her life then never quite went right.
The strangest image in the story is right at the start, when we’re told that the high school approved of a casino themed dance. Many schools would not. Two young lads, Jack and Holden, fall out over a lovely girl, Kate. Jack is sporty and his pal Holden is shy and pudgy. Later in life, the working lobsterman Holden Foster has grown up and got fit, keeping his boat in Bittersweet Harbor, two hours south of Maine. Kate’s husband Jack was killed serving abroad, and her fine son Ryan is now fourteen, with college in his future. Kate helps in her family’s diner, but she’d love to open Bittersweet Harbor’s first pastry shop.
Partly what I enjoy in this romance tale, is that Kate has options, and having put her son first, she is now starting to expand her horizons. Her friends and family want the best for her, and that doesn’t mean telling her of course she’ll stay in Bittersweet Harbor all her life - she could move, return to education, work in a city. Indeed, Kate gets expert training, a wise move before considering opening a business. And her heart, closed off for years, starts to expand its borders too.
Holden is a good-hearted man, but the life of a lobster fisherman is tied to the shore, and carries risk and no guarantee of a good season. I can well understand why he hasn’t married, even aside from carrying a torch for Kate. Today, fewer men want to do dangerous work, and fewer women will accept the cost.
Previous romance books by author Karen Foley look at ranching and the work of US Marshals, while WHAT’S LEFT OF ME is second in the Bittersweet Harbor series. This is a strongly plotted and well-described clean romance novel, with characters you’ll quickly befriend and hidden memories that threaten to spoil happiness. I very much enjoyed the read and will look forward to more tales from this seashore town.
Quiet and steadfast, lobsterman Holden Foster has loved Kate Belshaw since he was an awkward teenager without a hope of winning her heart. When she married his best friend right out of high school, he believed she was lost to him forever. That didn't stop him from watching over her and her young son each time her military husband deployed to the far side of the world. Fifteen years later, she's a single mom-and he's no longer a self-conscious teen. He's always been there for Kate, even if she didn't realize it. But can he convince her to take a chance on a man who will love her the way she deserves?
A surprise pregnancy at eighteen derailed Kate's college dreams, and her youthful marriage to Bittersweet Harbor's golden boy was far from blissful. Now a single mom, she waits tables at her family's iconic diner and bakes in her spare time, determined to save enough money to open her own pastry shop. She has no time for distractions-especially not the strong, silent kind that make her heart beat faster and her knees go weak. But when a dark secret from Holden's past resurfaces, it could destroy everything Kate thought she knew about him-and herself.
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