Tammy Murphy is a girl from an ordinary family in small town Hamlin, New Hampshire. She has ambitions--she's starring her own fashion line--but she intends to do it while keeping her home town as her home base. Her best friend has just gotten married, and left on an extended honeymoon, and Tammy's latest crush, the wedding photography, has returned to his high-flying home turf in London. She's feeling a bit lost.
Roark Donovan is the son of a wealthy Boston family, staying in Hamlin, interning at the local bank, while his family is summering in their nearby summer home on Lake Winnipesauke. He's not really feeling it with any of the careers his family would like him to pursue, and he's not really feeling it with the young woman he's known all his life, whom his family and hers have hoped he will marry. He really does like her, but marriage? No.
Then Tammy and Roark meet in the local diner. Sparks fly, and anyway, he's obviously not staying, and Tammy isn't looking for another summer fling with a man who is only in town for a few weeks.
So of course she has soon recruited him into the local community theater Romeo and Juliet performance, and Roark has convinced her to come to his family's Sunday barbecue. Misunderstandings ensue, including the moment that Tammy realizes she's there partly to send the message that Roark is really not going to marry the old family friend, Amanda. There's Roark's godfather, who is a charming man, but also a man of mixed and somewhat questionable background. There's the cute squabble over whether it will be Roark or his father who recruits a celebrity to do a walk-on for the Romeo and Juliet production. The Boston charity gala for which Roark asks her to make a dress for Amanda, so that Tammy's work will be seen by influential people, and also asks her to attend the gala with them so that she can meet those influential people as the designer of Amanda's dress.
This is a very gentle novella, where everyone ranges from essentially decent to very good, and misunderstandings are always resolved in the end. Not heart-pounding excitement, but enjoyable.
I bought this book.
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