Ainsley Davis was living her dream life until the day of the fire. She was a career park ranger at the Grand Canyon, married to a wonderful guy, and had just found out she was pregnant. Then the fire took her husband’s life.
The story opens almost two years later with Ainsley’s decision to return to her old job, away from the family that had sheltered her and the baby. Ainsley has changed. She’s no longer the confident, fearless woman she once was. Now she lives in the paralyzing knowledge that Faith is just one parent away from being an orphan, and it’s affecting her life and her job performance.
Jake is a newcomer to the park, recovering from a difficult situation in which he, as a cop, feels he could have prevented. That will never happen again. He sees Ainsley’s vulnerability and wants, above all, to shelter her. Meanwhile, Dustin had been close friends with Ainsley and her husband. He still works at the park, and he challenges Ainsley to grab life again and not give in to her fears.
Ainsley isn’t sure there’s room in her life for romance at all. She’s trying to be a good mom and employee. But if she were looking, who would she pick? Safety? Or the adventure she once craved?
Love is Grand is Book Three in A Walk in the Park series. The three novels follow the romantic adventures of Ainsley and her two friends, rangers at different national parks in the US. I haven’t read the other two books and didn’t feel like I was missing anything vital to understanding this one, even when Ainsley and her friends took a brief vacation together or talked on the phone with each other. Aside from a satisfying love story, I also caught glimpses of a very famous American landmark.
Annalisa Daughety won first place in the Contemporary Romance category at the 2008 ACFW Genesis Awards. After graduating from Freed-Hardeman University, she spent time working as a park ranger for the National Park Service. This experience led her to write the Walk in the Park series–each book in the series is set in a different national park. Originally from McCrory, Arkansas, Annalisa now resides in Memphis, Tennessee.
Annalisa is also one of my co-authors for the upcoming novella anthology, At Rainbow’s End. Now that I have a better idea of her writing style, I’m even more looking forward to working with her.
I received a digital copy of this novel via NetGalley for the purposes of review. Opinions, as always, are mine alone.
