Overdone, but you can see the bones of a good story here. Quibbles first: as I said, it's overdone, and needs a good editing. Or maybe a ham-handed editor is responsible for this. Ice cream isn't just ice cream, it's a "cool dessert" (no, I'm not getting over that one any time soon). It sounds as if I'm dissing the whole book based on one phrase, but I'm not--that's just the best example of how the whole book is. There's a great story there, but for me, it kind of got lost under an avalanche of superfluous adjectives, adverbs, and descriptive passages. The story, though, was excellent. It's a reunion story, which you know I love anyway, and there are twists. Outsider returns to small town for her high school reunion where everyone thinks she's a huge success because of some embellishment from her friends. She's an author, sold her first book, but hasn't been able to sell another. So she encounters a whole host of reactions: from excitement and pride to envy and resentment. And there's the man she came back for: a rancher, whose life has been taking care of the ranch and his younger brothers and his psychologically ill mother after his father died. Both of them are harboring feelings for each other from the past, and both of them are afraid they're not good enough for the other and don't want to tie them down/cause them pain. This book's from 1997, and it's easy to see how a few years later she's become such a good author. I have her latest in my TBR pile. ( )