Everything changes

The mellow romance that concludes Bybee's Creek Canyon series (after Home to Me) sees the youngest member of the Hudson clan find love. Though Grace Hudson feels pressure to settle down, she's avoided relationships ever since a man she'd just started seeing turned out to be a violent sociopath. Instead, she focuses all of her attention on her job as a civil engineer. But when she's assigned to work with land developer Dameon Locke, she can't deny the instant spark between them. Dameon's captivated by Grace's beauty, and it's not long before he's just as smitten with her intelligence, humor, and good nature. Still, Grace has fought long and hard to prove herself in a male-dominated field, and she's hesitant to jeopardize her career by getting involved with one of her clients. While Grace deals with a chauvinistic boss and a rebellious property owner, Dameon works to win over both Grace and her fiercely protective family, led by her ex-cop father who "can't trust a man in a suit." Bybee mixes in humor and just a dash of danger to create a sweet, satisfying love story. Series fans will be delighted. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel, Goderich, and Bourret. (Nov.)

A meet-cute between a civil engineer and a land developer leads to a charming love story overlaid on a quest to clear the engineer of bribery charges. Grace Hudson, a civil engineer for the city of Santa Clarita, California, is very good at her job. She's strong and typically confident, but in this third book in the Creek Canyon series, that confidence has taken a knock and she hasn't dated for six months. When she spots Dameon Locke across the hotel gardens at her brother's wedding, the attraction is immediate. Sparks fly at their second chance meeting the next morning at a coffee shop as well, but then it turns out that Dameon is the land developer for the newest project that Grace has been assigned at work. Starting a romantic relationship with a client is a terrible idea, Grace knows, but their interest in each other is undeniable. When a meeting with another landowner goes poorly and Grace calls Dameon for help, their relationship--and the need to clear Grace's name from bribery accusations--kicks off. Grace's close relationships with her brothers, their partners, and her parents play a large part in the book, and Dameon must prove his good intentions to her family. The sexual tension between Grace and Dameon is deliciously drawn out, and their relationship is wrapped up in a very satisfying way by the end of the volume. Readers will have to take coincidences on faith, and bad-guy motivations are left entirely unexplained, but neither truly detracts from the frothy fun of the love story at the center of this cozy romantic thriller. This sweet, sexy book is just the escapism many people are looking for right now. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.