Book of the Week: Heroes Are My Weakness

Yes this week’s pick is technically cheating because I finished this on Monday. Do I care? No. I make the rules, so I get to twist them a little when I want. Anyway, I’m back in contemporary romance this week with Susan Elizabeth Philips’s Heroes Are My Weakness which turned out to be really quite particularly up my street.

Annie Hewitt has arrived on a Maine Island in the middle of winter. She’s out of money and places to live, and she’s moving back to her mum’s old holiday home, Moonraker Cottage. Unfortunately the island is also the scene of one of the worst events of her teenage years, and the person behind it – Theo – is in residence at Harp House nearby. Now she’s trapped on Peregrine Island with a lonely widow, a mute little girl and nosy townspeople with only her trusty puppets for company. 

I’ve read quite a lot of Susan Elizabeth Philips – especially her Chicago Stars series* – but this has quite a different feel to it and wasn’t quite what I expected but it was exactly what I needed this weekend (and Monday evening!). It starts off super Gothicky but actually ends up being much sweeter than you expect and also very romantic. There is some death around in the backstories (but not on page) with issues of domestic violence and suicide as well, so if that’s something you’re trying to avoid, please do be aware of that. Ok at the start you’ll have to deal with/get used to some dialogue, well actually inner monologue, from puppets, but don’t let that put you off. It actually reminded me a lot of the feel of some of the earlier Trisha Ashley novels that I enjoyed so much, but without magic – instead it has the puppets. I can’t remember which is the one with the Winged Muse in it, but that one crossed with A Winters Tale. The romance is intriguing, Annie’s journey is good and the winter island community is very believable. It’s also got a bit (quite a lot?) of mystery in there, but it’s not too thrillery or scary. 

My copy came from the library but you can get on Kindle and Kobo – where it’s £2.49 at time of writing. I’m not sure if it’ll be in the bookshops because it’s American, but who can predict what it will be like when things are open again at this point!

Happy Reading!

*there’s a new instalment later this year and I’m really quite excited about it!