Second Chance at the Sugar Shack by Candis Terry

Kate Silver’s back in town, and her dead mother just won’t leave her alone.


Kate usually spends her days dressing Hollywood A-listers, but after her estranged mother dies she finds herself elbow-deep in flour in her parents’ bakery in Deer Lick, Montana. She thought she’d left small town life far, far behind, but it seems there are a few loose ends.


The boy she once loved, Deputy Matt Ryan, is single and sexy and still has a thing for her – and handcuffs.


Her mother, who won’t follow the white light, is determined to give maternal advice from beyond the grave.


And somehow Kate’s three-day stay has, well – extended. She never planned to fill her mother’s pie-baking shoes – she prefers her Choos, thank you very much. But with the help of a certain man in uniform, Kate quickly learns that sometimes second chances are all the more sweet.

There's only one reaction when you suddenly realise that you actually only have one day before e-galley expires, you haven't even transferred it onto your e-reader yet and it can't be downloaded again! Panic!! Or maybe there is really a second reaction - decide that you are going to start reading it at 10pm on a Sunday night and you will just push hard to finish it the next day and hope that you get it finished before zero hour.

Fortunately for me, this is the kind of book that you can start at 10pm at night and just keep on reading and suddenly it is 1am and you have to get up in 5 hours but you close the now finished book with a contented sigh!

Kate Silver is stylist to the stars - country stars, pushy starlets  - you name it she tells them what to wear and when and can name drop with the best of them! She's worked hard to get to where she is and she needs to work twice as hard to stay there.

When her mother dies, Kate returns to the small town she escaped from 10 years before. She couldn't get out of Deer Lick fast enough not even to say goodbye to anyone, especially after a terrible argument with her mother, and now she is not in such a hurry to get back again, except she knows that her dad needs her. The other reason why she is a bit apprehensive about going back to town - the chance that she might run into her ex, Matt Ryan. She figures, though, that he will have let himself go so it shouldn't be a problem.

Matt Ryan has, however, done anything but let himself go. He is now a very handsome man in uniform - deputy sheriff uniform at that. When he meets Kate at her mother's funeral she can't believe her eyes, anymore than she can believe what she hears when she finds out he has written up a list of the most eligible women in town to choose a wife from. And Matt is determined that Kate is not going to go on the list even if they do still have incredible chemistry.

Second Chance at the Sugar Shack is another entry in the contemporary romances with a small town setting that I have been really enjoying this year. The author has tried to make it a little different than normal by adding in the ghost of Kate's mother who tries to push her in the right direction as well as to try and heal the hurts that still are smouldering despite 10 years of virtual estrangement.

With a title like this, you know that there is bound to be some sugar involved somewhere in the book. In this case it is the family bakery that Kate's parents have run for many years. After being strong armed into staying to help her dad by her siblings (who will of course get their own book in due course) Kate eventually begins to see Deer Lick in a different light and begins to reevaluate exactly what it is that she wants for her life.

The baked goods sound delicious and I really wished that I had some while I was reading (except for that whole crumbs in the bed thing) and the descriptions added an extra something to the book!

With the combination of small town contemporary romance, ghostly mother visitations, baked goods and more it wouldn't have been too difficult for this to stray into the territory of saccharine sweet, but Candis Terry manages to keep it just the right side of the line. I will certainly be looking forward to reading the next book, preferably with a sweet snack or two placed conveniently close at hand.

Rating 4/5

Review copy provided by Netgalley - thanks!