Still the One by Susan May Warren

 Megan Carter is a wedding planner in her home town of Deep Haven.  Cole Barrett used to visit his grandfather in Deep Haven each summer, and Megan and Cole were childhood friends.  Tragedy struck Cole's family and sent him into the foster care system and then into the Army.  When Cole, having finished his tour of duty, returns to Deep Haven to settle his grandfather's affairs he doesn't plan to stay for long.  Then he see Megan again. She is now a single mom, still wounded that her son's father didn't want to stay and help raise their son.  Neither Cole or Megan think that renewing their childhood relationship would work, but both are inexplicably drawn to each other against their best intentions.

I am always on the lookout for new source for good clean romance.  I hadn't read anything from this author before so I thought I would give her a try.  There were some things I liked.  I thought Cole's voice was very charming.  He sounded, in my head, like I would imagine a handsome x-Army Ranger would sound.  The host of secondary characters were also decent, making Deep Haven seem like an inviting Halmark-movie-type setting. The weakness of the book was the pacing.  Ugh! it was so slow.  I kept thinking, "come on, we need something to happen here."  I almost didn't finish the book.  Finally, I skipped an entire hour of the recording and jumped to the last 1/2 to see how it would end.  I found, by doing that, that I didn't actually miss any important plot points. So maybe Ms. Warren isn't going on my favorite Christian romance writers list.   (248 p. 2021)