Friday Harbor novels by Lisa Kleypas

My recent binge on Lisa Kleypas' Hathaway novels led me to pick up the first two novels in her new Friday Harbor trilogy at the library. (Oddly, it's a trilogy of four books about three brothers. I can not explain.)  The first two in the Friday Harbor trilogy are Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor and Rainshadow Road. It seems that maybe Christmas Eve is a prequel of sorts, although it is the story of the oldest brother.  I read them back to back and am pretty curious who the 4th book will be about.


Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor opens with a tragedy. Mark Nolan's sister has died in an accident and left him custody of her 6 year old daughter Holly. Because of his horrible childhood, Mark is pretty committed to being a bachelor.  He moves in with his brother Sam (also a bachelor) and they start raising Holly. Holly hasn't spoken since her mother's death, but a chance meeting with a toy shop owner has her find her voice. Mark is drawn to this woman (Maggie) and they fall in love fairly quickly.  This one is really short, only 211 pages of fairly large print, so it all happens quickly and you're left feeling a bit short changed, for a novel. I think maybe this would have been better suited to being a short story prequel. I enjoyed it, but I didn't really fall for any of the main characters and I think if I didn't already have the next one sitting here I might not have gone on.


Fortunately, Rainshadow Road is much more fleshed out. Rainshadow Road is called book one of the trilogy, and is about the second brother, Sam. I enjoyed Sam much more than Mark, even in Mark's book. Sam has a great sense of humor and is a charming, handsome geek.  He finds himeslf falling for Lucy, who has recently been dumped by her boyfriend and had to start her life over. Lucy is cautious about jumping into a new relationship, for about a week. Sam, like his brother, is never getting married.  This one takes place over a much longer time frame and I felt like it was possible that these two did fall in love.  Despite this, I did have some issues with the book. First, the problem if her ex-boyfriend is neatly wrapped up emotionally fairly quickly. Secondly, this one introduces an element of fantasy that I wasn't sure needed to be there and was completely absent in Christmas Eve. I didn't mind it so much, but it made Christmas Eve seem even weaker and less thought out.

Overall, the series so far has been good, but not great. I'll certainly pick up the next two (the last brother and someone unknown!) as they show up at the library, but I won't be waiting with as much impatience as I am for the next Nora Roberts.