Overall Grade: A- / B+
Tropes: small town romance; grump-sunshine; insta-attraction; he falls first, but reluctantly; overcome the past; neighbors/close proximity
Overcoming the traumas of our past is a continuous theme in literature. The power the past holds to keep us from experiencing the depths of our present impacts almost all of us. In her newest story, Vi Keeland wraps up the truth about letting go in a simmering, spicy romance replete with witty banter, an interfering small town, and a dose of angst. What Happens at the Lake is everything we’ve come to love in a Vi Keeland contemporary romance. She entices you with a beginning that piques your curiosity with its light-heartedness, and she wallops you in the middle with the depths of “life.” Marrying the congeniality of fiction with the emotional gravitas of real life, Keeland engages her readers easily.
And it’s easy to love Josie and Fox, her main characters. These are not simplistic renderings as trope titles and blurbs would assert. While Josie is the light to Fox’s dark, she holds gradients of both. Fox is no different. When Keeland writes him at his grumpiest, there is still a charm and humor in his characterization. It’s difficult to dislike him even at his most churlish. Keeland has deftly woven his backstory throughout the romance so motivations are understood and sympathy granted to the hard-hearted, emotoinally unavailable Fox. She further showcases her adeptness at drawing complicated characters in making him the first to fall. The relationship-allergic becomes the most emotionally incapacitated by it. While Vi Keeland’s characters first inhabit the pages of her stories as enemies or opponents, she carefully plots to unwind that tension so as to draw the emotions out of her readers. And she succeeds every single time.
Along with the capable rendering of her characters, in this book, she gifts us with the ameliorating power of the found family in the small town, Laurel Lake, America’s Friendliest Town. Incorporating various characters adds humor to the story as well as wizened guides for both of the characters. This setting is key to undermining the tension between Josie and Fox, and it provides a respite when the story becomes emotionally difficult. There is wisdom in adding this “found family” to both Josie and Fox’s journey.
Vi Keeland’s What Happens at the Lake is a wonderful read, one that warms your soul and steams your glasses (or panties). The strife, the spice, and the tomfoolery conspire to remind you why you can never pass on a Vi Keeland story.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 