cover image What the Heart Wants

What the Heart Wants

Audrey Carlan. HQN, $16.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-335-48491-8

Carlan (the Biker Beauties series) allows her heroine to find a balance between stability and adventure in this sexy second chance romance. When Suda Kaye Ross’s mother died, she left behind a series of letters to be opened on Suda Kaye’s birthdays. The first encouraged Suda Kaye to “fly free”—advice she took literally, leaving behind her hometown of Pueblo, Colo., and her first love, Camden Bryant. She takes a decade to see the world. Then, on her 28th birthday, her mother’s advice is to go home. Suda Kaye happily reunites with her sister, Evie, in Pueblo, where she decides to open a boutique. Evie helps Suda Kaye obtain financial backing, but one of the investors is Camden. Sparks fly as Camden helps Suda Kaye set up her business, despite Camden’s engagement to another woman and Suda Kaye’s lingering guilt over having broken his heart. When Camden ends things with his duplicitous fiancée, Suda Kaye must decide if she can put aside her wanderlust to establish roots in Pueblo. Readers will be gratified to see the sweet relationship between the sisters treated with as much importance as the steamy one between Suda Kaye and Camden. This small-town contemporary is as stylish, confident, and free-spirited as its heroine. Agent: Amy Tannenbaum, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (July)