Kristan Higgins
December 26, 2017
HQN Books
Blurb: New York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins welcomes you home in this witty, emotionally charged novel about the complications of life, love and family
One step forward. Two steps back. The Tufts scholarship that put Nora Stuart on the path to becoming a Boston medical specialist was a step forward. Being hit by a car and then overhearing her boyfriend hit on another doctor when she thought she was dying? Two major steps back.
Injured in more ways than one, Nora feels her carefully built life cracking at the edges. There’s only one place to land: home. But the tiny Maine community she left fifteen years ago doesn’t necessarily want her. At every turn, someone holds the prodigal daughter of Scupper Island responsible for small-town drama and big-time disappointments.
With a tough islander mother who’s always been distant, a wild-child sister in jail and a withdrawn teenage niece as eager to ditch the island as Nora once was, Nora has her work cut out for her if she’s going to take what might be her last chance to mend the family. Balancing loss and opportunity, dark events from her past with hope for the future, Nora will discover that tackling old pain makes room for promise…and the chance to begin again.
SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW
Once upon a time I could have run the Kristan Higgins fan club. The first book of hers I read, I almost literally devoured. The heroine was decidedly different from the norm, awkward, sometimes clumsy socially. She longed after someone she couldn’t have and, well, haven’t most of us been there? The next one cemented my adoration. I loved the hero almost as much as the heroine loved him. But then, many books along the way, it felt like she found a formula, stuck with it, making some of her book far too predictable.
With Now That You Mention It, I am once again part of the Higgins fan club. In Nora, she has created a spunky, once again, relatable heroine. I like the fact that Now That You Mention It has plenty of strong women who do support each other.
Unfortunately Higgins hasn’t quite relinquished some of the formulas. Her bias against vegans/vegetarians remains active, even here. She includes a vegan character who also happens to be an alcoholic (because the vegan character can’t just be a regular woman) and Nora thinks it amusing that she served her an animal product.
In a similar vein, I wish that Higgins could create antagonists who were a bit more gray than black and white. The people who do Nora wrong or dislike her are never shown as complex characters. As Higgins is moving in the direction of writing women’s fiction, I hope she becomes a bit more perceptive and creates more multi-dimensional antagonists.
For those of you who are fans of her previous novels, you’ll be delighted to know that the oddball humor is alive and well in this book. There is a dog. There is a touch of romance. There is fluff.
On the flipside, several more serious issues are dealt with. “A Big Event” is referred to multiple times before it’s introduced. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the fact that it was referred to many times before it was actually explained, but I think that this may be related to how the narration was done. There is a lot of “telling” and jumping around in time. It’s a lot like sitting in a room listening to a character tell you their story and then they go off and live in the present and then they’re back talking at you again. This seems to be a new style for Higgins (although I didn’t read her last book so it may actually have started there).
With all of that said, Now That You Mention It is a good diversion, an excellent book to take up to relieve you of stress and give you some laughs.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Now That You Mention It goes on sale December 26, but you can preorder it from Amazon here:
rating: 
4 out of 5 butterflies
Sounds like a good book! I’ll have to check it out.
I was quickly immersed in it and enjoyed the laughs. If you read, I hope you do too! 🙂