Susan Sands is from Louisiana, but lives in Georgia now. Love, Alabama is the second book in the Alabama series.

Emma Laroux had it all in college:  a shot at the Miss America title, a bright future, and a charming boyfriend she loved. But all of that disappeared because of a night she can’t remember, a night full of scandal that cost her her boyfriend and caused her to walk away from her title. Now she’s settled in her small home town, happy with her life as a pageant coach.

Except it’s been years since she dated anyone, and she’s not sure why. Sure, it would be nice to have kids, but the men aren’t exactly beating down her door. Then Matthew Pope arrives in town. He’s not happy to be back in the South, and when he sees Emma, he remembers that fateful night ten years before, when she was in trouble and he came to her rescue. But Emma doesn’t remember Matthew, and soon the past starts to haunt the two of them, interfering with the attraction growing between them.

I love book series set in the same location, where characters I loved in previous books appear in the current one, and you find out what’s going on in their lives. This is a series like that, and although I haven’t read Again, Alabama, I love the sense of family that links the two books. And the picture of small-town Southern life is scarily accurate, complete with nosy neighbors and former beauty queens with attitudes.

(Galley provided by Tule Publishing via NetGalley.)

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