Book: Already Home by Susan Mallery

Got a print copy of this book from the author, in exchange for a review. This is more stream of consciousness than review, so not up to my usual standards. Sorry.

Jenna is a complex character, a woman with a real flair for cooking and a serious inferiority complex in the kitchen, thanks to her ex-husband. She packs up her life post-divorce and moves back to her hometown, where she decides on a whim to open a kitchen/cooking store. Running said store is not all she thought it would be, and the trials and tribulations can be funny.

She has a great relationship with her adoptive mom and dad, and has never had any interest in searching for or getting to know her birth parents. Guess who shows up right in the big middle of her remaking her life? I figured out what her birth mother's agenda was pretty quickly - it seemed logical to me, though I don't think it was telegraphed much - maybe not at all. I have to confess to not really liking her birth mother, even by the end of the book. Maybe because I had a mother like that, and it pushed too many buttons for me.

The B story of her getting back into dating was not as satisfying for me for some reason. I didn't really connect with Ellington - he seemed too good to be true, and even at the end of the story, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and for him to turn out to be some jackass.

The other B story of her store manager Violet's relationship woes is actually pretty compelling, and I'd like to read more about her. She's got a convoluted backstory, and I look forward to learning more about that. I adore Jenna's dad's solution to her big problem.

Jenna's birth brother Dragon is very interesting, and I definitely want to read more about him. He sounds like just my kind of not-quite-bad boy.