Falling For Zoe by Skye Taylor

Skye Taylor, known for writing taut political intrigue in her initial novel, Whatever It Takes, has now released a contemporary romance novel.  Falling For Zoe is written with the same kind of character depth as her first published work.  It is a charming story without schmaltz.  Based in a small North Carolina seaside town known as Tide's Way.  The setting is filled with history, charming old houses, and long-standing oak trees.

Zoe, pregnant with her lover's child, buys an old house full of charm but needing repair.  Her lover has moved on, wanting nothing more to do with her or their baby.  On the day she moves in, she meets her next-door neighbor, Jake Cameron.  He lives with his twin girls, a teen-aged daughter, and his mother-in-law who has Alzheimer's.  He ex-wife deserted the family, including her own mother.  She has not seen her children since she left.  Jake's heart needs to mend as much as Zoe's.

There is an instant attraction between them.  But as in life the path to love is not smooth.  There are obstacles aplenty to the relationship, especially the hurt each one must overcome.

You will like these characters, recognize them from your own life experience. There is a tense climax and an epilogue filled with ironic humor and implications for the future.  Jake's extended family, the Cameron clan, will be the subject of subsequent novels about Tide's Way.

Falling For Zoe is a wonderful read, sweet, but not cloying like the sweet tea the characters drink. (Sorry, I'm a Texan who likes her tea straight up.)

You'll love getting to know these characters and will look forward to more about the Camerons.

If you like intelligent stories of contemporary romance, this one's for you.

Lovely job, Ms. Taylor!

Blurb

Zoe Callahan, pregnant with the child her ex-boyfriend doesn’t want, adores her ramshackle new home in the seaside town of Tide’s Way, North Carolina. When she meets her handsome next-door neighbor, Jake Cameron, who offers some fixer-upper help, her heart goes out to him instantly. He’s a doting dad to three daughters and the kind caretaker to a mom-in-law with Alzheimer’s. Jake is equally smitten with Zoe, but he won’t risk turning his family upside down again after his ex-wife nearly destroyed it.

 As their friendship grows, Zoe discovers love hasn’t given up on her, even if the father of her unborn child did. Now she just needs to figure out why Jake is so determined not to let the heady attraction that sizzles between them turn into something more than just friends. Then one evening when their attraction threatens to boil over, Jake is convinced Zoe wants a fairytale he is not capable of giving her. He says some pretty stupid things to squash her expectations, and Zoe is crushed.

Before Jake has a chance to fix what he's nearly broken, disaster strikes, and Jake is Zoe’s reluctant rescuer. He already has her heart, but now, in spite of the rift that has come between them, she must trust him with her life and the life of her baby. Can Jake shake the demons in his own past and trust himself?

Links for purchase:

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For more information:

Author's Website