ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE – Marie Force
A Green Mountain Romance
Berkley Sensation
ISBN: 978-0-425-26676-2
February 2014
Contemporary Romance

Present Day Butler, Vermont

Lincoln Abbot is of the third generation running the Green Mountain Country Store—along with his wife Molly and five of their ten adult children. (The other five contribute in their own individual ways.) Concerned that he preserves the business for later generations, Lincoln sends for the daughter of an old friend, billionaire Patrick Murphy, to bring the store into the twenty-first century. Lincoln is the only one who thinks going on the Internet is a good idea. The others love the store as is and want to keep it that way.

New Yorkers to the bone, Cameron Murphy and her best friend and partner, Lucy Mulvaney, own and run a website development company. It's important to their company that they get this account; Cameron even buys a car for her trip to Vermont to present her ideas to the Abbots. Little does Cameron know her welcome will not be a warm one…in any respect. First of all, winter has not yet left the mountains, and driving is slow and difficult on these slick twisty roads, and it's getting dark. A moment's inattention and Cameron runs her little car into something big and black. The next thing she knows, she'd lost her headlights, her face hurts from the exploding airbag, and she can't start the car or get a signal on her cell phone! Then she hears a voice asking Fred if he's alright. It seems she's run into the town moose, who has weathered the collision far better than did her car.

This is how Will Abbot first meets the city girl who's come to mess with the family store. He tries to ignore her good looks—only slightly marred in his eyes by the airbag injuries—and her sweet smell. She appeals to him in spite of her cranky manner as he helps her into his truck and into town.

Could two people be any more unsuited than a career minded city girl with only a distant father as family and a small town country boy with loving parents and nine siblings? Cameron has an uphill job to change the minds of all the eight brothers and two sisters. The mother is an unknown at first, but a most lovely creature.

Cameron is a sympathetic character, a likable woman with sadness in her past. As for Will, I dare any woman not to fall in love with him…a strong, gorgeous hunk who manages to be tender besides. The dealings with each other go from tart to amicable to sweet, but all the while the banter between them is clever and witty…and there is plenty of it. The large supporting cast adds even more interest…and, hopefully, means many more tales to come. (At least one is in the works for next June. A family tree or list of family members and their specialties might be a good idea in future books.)

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE is a warm, sensuous, and happy book that includes a bonus short story.

What a delight to find a new author! I don't know how I missed knowing of Ms. Force, but she goes on my must-read list for sure.

Jane Bowers