At Last

Why is it that I get midway through a book these days and go all meh? This is the first book in a series about a trio of boys, adopted by a single woman in Brooklyn, and each of them finding love. For some reason I read all the other books first so in my sad little 'completer-finisher' world I had to come back and read the first book. I have to say it gives a lot more context for the peripheral arc of the boys' adoptive mother Louisa Mills and her bid to be a local councillor. Nick Kelley is a local boy made good. The son of a single father who was also an abusive addict, he went on to play in the NFL before injury forced early retirement. Now he has returned to the old neighbourhood of Park Heights as the owner of a bar called The End Zone. Emma Bradley nee Vandenburg has returned to Brooklyn after her miscarriage and the collapse of her marriage to Colin in Chicago. She hopes to work in the local family brewery, The Unity, with her father. Out on an uninspiring date at The End Zone, she accidentally gets caught up in a brawl with a customer high on drugs and drink and gets punched in the face. Nick rescues her, unaware that the two of them were once lab partners at school - although he does have a feeling of familiarity. Imagine his surprise when he goes to the Unity to sign the contract to buy the brewery only to find Emma is the girl from his bar! For her part Emma is blindsided by her father's decision to sell the brewery at all, especially since she has put herself through the prestigious Siebel Institute to learn all she can about brewing. What follows is a classic case of polarised desires - each of them wants the brewery and the other, but how can they both win? I was enjoying this at first but I think my main issue with the book is that both Nick and Emma were too nice. They weren't plotting behind each other's backs to wrest control of the brewery, they weren't in a competition where whoever brewed the best beer got the brewery, they were just in a state of limbo where Emma taught Nick all about running a brewery rather than running a bar. I liked it but I didn't love it.