Book Review: Home To Whiskey Creek

Author: Brenda Novak
Title: Home To Whiskey Creek
Publisher: Mira
Publish Date: July 30, 2013
Buy: Amazon

Review Copy Provided By: The author in exchange for an honest review
Book Blurb: 

Sometimes home is the refuge you need—and sometimes it isn't

Adelaide Davies, who's been living in Sacramento, returns to Whiskey Creek, the place she once called home. She's there to take care of her aging grandmother and to help with Gran's restaurant, Just Like Mom's. But Adelaide isn't happy to be back. There are too many people here she'd rather avoid, people who were involved in that terrible June night fifteen years ago.

Ever since the graduation party that changed her life, she's wanted to go to the police and make sure the boys responsible—men now—are punished. But she can't, not without revealing an even darker secret. So it's better to pretend….

Noah Rackham, popular, attractive, successful, is shocked when Adelaide won't have anything to do with him. He has no idea that his very presence reminds her of something she'd rather forget. He only knows that he's finally met a woman he could love.

Review: Home At Whiskey Creek is book four in the Whiskey Creek Novels series. It is a good stand alone book as well. Basically a lot of the secondary characters were main characters in previous books, but nothing from the other books ties in too much with this story.

I'm very much on the fence with this book. Brenda strives to create a romance novel that has a lot of edge to it. Not only do you have Addy, a heroine, who has gang raped by members of the baseball team, 15 years prior, but you have a hero dealing with his best friend, coming out of the closet.

Oh and that friend has a crush on him.


She's returned to Whiskey Creek, a place that holds nothing but bad memories for her, to take care of her grandmother. She's not there for long and she's kidnapped and left in a mine shaft...and it is Noah that finds her.

So right there you have the makings of a novel that really has a lot to hold your interest, but Addy was just not a total winner as far as heroines are concerned. She was a mixture of strength and vulnerability. I just couldn't like her.

Noah, I liked a little bit more...but he had so many issues. His twin was the one that instigated the rape and was killed in the mine and he is also dealing with his best friend coming out of the closet, in a most unpleasant fashion for him.

I felt like there was too much hard hitting issues with this book and those issues kept the romance from blossoming in a way that felt more right.

What Brenda did do is create a cast of bad guys that you really wanted to see locked up even though most had grown up and become better people. But god some of them were really nasty, and borderline evil. I hated Derek and Kevin with a passion...and Noelle..I just wanted to slap.

Overall, the romance aspect didn't work for me, but the suspense did. Especially at the beginning, when the first pages of the book involve the heroine trapped in a mine, well you know there's going to be some good suspense. The first pages really made me nervous. That's something some of the best thrillers have failed to do.

The ending brought proper closure...and I have to say I was amazed at who was harassing Addy.

Recommended to readers who like more suspense then romance and who can handle a story that revolves around some tough issues.

Rating: 4 flowers