The Winter Lodge

Starred review from December 18, 2006
In her latest bustling romance, Wiggs cooks up a rich stew of family plots past and present, spiced with plenty of generations-old Polish recipes, in this second installment of the Lakeshore Chronicles (after Summer at Willow Lake
). Returning to Camp Kioga in Avalon, a small New York town where the wealthy Bellamy family has deep roots, Wiggs trains the spotlight on Avalon native Jenny Majesky, a food columnist and bakery owner who learned in the last Lakeshore tale that Phillip Bellamy is her birth father. Alone and grieving following the death of her beloved grandmother—Jenny's mom left her at age four—Jenny's life turns even worse when her house burns to the ground. Stunned, homeless and keeping afloat with a little help from the medicine cabinet, Jenny moves in with Avalon police chief and notorious lady's man Roarke McKnight, a friend she fell out with after a night of drunken, mind-blowing sex a decade before. With the ease of a master, Wiggs introduces complicated, flesh-and-blood characters into her idyllic but identifiable smalltown setting, sets in motion a refreshingly honest romance, resolves old issues and even finds room for a little mystery. The result is as appealing as the heroine's Polish Apple Strudel, the recipe for which is thankfully included.