TROUBLE WHEN YOU WALKED IN – Kieran Kramer
St. Martin's Paperbacks
ISBN-10: 1-250-00993-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-250-00993-7
August 2015
Contemporary Romance

North Carolina – The Present

Thirty-two year old Cissie Rogers is the librarian of the Kettle Knob's public library, reservoir of her family's writings about the history of Kettle Knob since the American Revolution. Today, her and every other girl in high school's heartthrob—now mayor of Kettle Knob, Boone Braddock, who hasn't noticed her since the fourth grade—enters the library with Janelle Montgomery. Janelle is mayor of the neighboring town of Campbell. They've come to inform Cissie that to save expenses the two towns' libraries will be combined and relocated to a strip mall out by the highway. Cissie has been in a rut for a long time, with one experience beyond virginity. In some ways she has been waiting and depending on the library legend for finding her true love. If the library moves, the legend would end, and her true love, the out-of-towner entering the library for the first time, will never find her; and besides, the library building is as historical as its contents. It needs to be saved.

The Rogers and Braddock families have been in Kettle Knob since the first settlers arrived. The Braddocks are the active, accomplishing feats family; the Rogers family the writing, saving history, artistic intellectuals. They have never co-mingled. Now they will become political opponents in the mayoral race.

Boone Braddock has a secret reason he has never entered the library. Though well experienced with women and sexual encounters, he recognizes the librarian from high school. He overlooked her then, but not now. She is someone who doesn't worry about being herself, a refreshing circumstance that attracts him like no other woman has.

Kettle Knob is a typical small town with beautiful mountain views whose residents love it. Cissie lives with her grandmother Nana, Boone in his grandfather's house. His grandfather left it to him rather than his rich, real estate mogul parents. Both want to do right for Kettle Knob, but have different views and opinions. They both deal with eccentric family and friends. The library debacle leads to some unusual circumstances that will change both Cissie and Boone, but will these changes lead to true love? Some natural disasters and a few social ones will hamper their way. Author Kieran Kramer writes with Southern style and humor about heart-warming emotional entanglements among all the characters.

Robin Lee