Return to Oak Valley

This is the first time I read a Shirlee Busbee book and it won't be the last... Excellent story

The Granger's and the Ballinger's had been feuding for over a hundred years, ever since the first Granger and the first Ballinger had migrated to Oak Valley, nestled in the mountains of northern California, after the Civil War. The Granger's were from the South and the Ballinger's were from the North. Naturally they were at each other's throats from the onset. And the feud hadn't let up in modern times either.Young Shelly Granger had fallen in love with Sloan Ballinger. But Josh, Shelly's brother, still upheld the feud between the Granger's and the Ballinger's. There was no way he wanted his baby sister to marry one of those despicable Ballinger's.Shelly Granger had not been back to her home in Oak Valley for seventeen long years. Not since the night she found her lover, Sloan Ballinger, in the arms of another woman. The only thing that brought her back now was the suicide death of her beloved brother, Josh.Shelly was soon to discover that the brother she thought she knew and had idolized existed only in her mind. After her return to Oak Valley from New Orleans, she began to discover things about him that just could not be true. Old flames die hard. The sparks between Shelly and Sloan had been embers for seventeen long years. One look at each other and the flames of desire were once again blazing hot and bright. Could Shelly prove the old saying that one can never go back wrong? Would fate be kinder to her and Sloan this second go around?Shirlee Busbee has created one heck of a story in RETURN TO OAK VALLEY. It is mystery, intrigue and romance all tied up into one amazing package. Busbee's magical words transported me to Oak Valley. I felt as though I was right there in northern California helping Shelly run the cattle ranch, feeling her joy and her pain right along with her. RETURN TO OAK VALLEY is a wonderful book and one that I highly recommend.Reviewed by Kristie Leigh Maguire...

Having never read a book by this author, and then finding out it was her first contemporary romance was a pleasant surprise. Shelly Granger fled to New Orleans from her hometown in Oak Valley seventeen years ago, devastated by a broken heart thanks to Sloan Ballinger. Shocking news of her brother's suicide forces her return to Oak Valley, and picking up the pieces of the ravaged Granger Cattle Company. Many questions need to be answered, specifically why would Josh, who practically raised Shelly after the death of their parents, and her hero, commit suicide? Why is the Granger Cattle Company practically non-existent, and who might have blackmailed Josh? And what did Josh have to do with Nick's parentage? Add the old Granger - Ballinger feud, and the desire that still burns red hot between Sloan and Shelly, and you have the formula for a prefect romantic suspense. Plus all the other alpha males in this book are just too much - I can definitely see future books (at least I hope there will be) for Jeb and Roman. The delightful secondary characters are just too good not to be brought back to life in future books.

Seventeen years ago, Shelley Granger fled her home in St. Galen, a small town in Northern California's Oak Valley to escape the failed romance with Sloan Ballinger. She has never returned to the valley until now. Her older brother Josh, who raised her when their parents died, killed himself and she needs to straighten out certain estate matters as well mourn.However, her image of Josh does not reconcile with those of others as she soon meets the son of a servant claiming to be her illegitimate nephew. She also runs into Sloan whose opinion on Josh is that the man was an SOB. Finally, a second cousin and law official tells her that Josh was hanging with bad people and may have allowed marijuana to grow on the vast ranch in exchange for erasing gambling debts. Shelley realizes Josh dipped into her trust fund without telling her. She even begins to wonder if he was murdered even as she falls back in love with Sloan.Though the dead Josh seems to have carried too much baggage for Shelley to have missed, readers will enjoy this exciting romantic suspense tale. The support cast including the four prime males that have impacted on her life (Sloan, Josh, he cousin, and her "nephew") enables the audience to understand the depth of the tribulations eating at Shelley's soul. Still RETURN TO OAK VALLEY is Shelley's tale as she wonders if she should continue her quest for the truth at the cost of tarnishing the image in her mind of a beloved dead one.Harriet Klausner