The Perfect Hope: Book Three of the Inn Boonsboro Trilogy by Nora Roberts

               I do not like Ryder.  This is something I am laying out there.  Since book one of the Inn Boonsboro Trilogy I have not liked him.  Now in the third book Ryder is the hero.  After finishing it, I find Ryder to be only slightly more appealing.  I do mean slightly.  With the series over, I still do not like him.         

                 

              Since I do not like one of the main characters so much, you are probably wondering why I read the book at all.  There are two main reasons.  First, I read the first two and I wanted to finish the series.  Second, I was really interested to see what happened with the inn’s ghost, Lizzy.  By reading the book, I got my answer.

                 

              Hope is the innkeeper for the Inn Boonsboro owned by the Montgomery family.  The entire time she has worked at the inn, the oldest Montgomery son, Ryder, has been very unfriendly to Hope.  He has been antagonistic, surly, and at times down-right nasty.  This behavior is directed at everyone at times, but Hope gets the privilege all the time.  She does not understand why Ryder treats her this way, or her attraction to him.  Ryder is also fighting his attraction to Hope.  He believes she is too perfect and not for him.  Of course they figure out how to get together.  At first they agree their interactions will be without romantic feelings.  It does not take long for that to go out the window.  Even with feelings creeping into their relationship, things go smoothly between them.  Then Hope’s past comes back to haunt her.

                 

               Mixed into the story about the romance of the living characters, there is the story about the inn’s ghost, Lizzy.  Since her death during the Civil War, she has been waiting for her lost love, Billy.  She has the help of Owen and Hope to find Billy, but with limited information it is a long process.  If only they did not have such a hard time understanding what she is trying to tell them.  As hard as this separation is for Lizzy, she makes sure to still have fun.  She plays with the lights, opens doors, and locks people in rooms.  In many ways her locking Ryder and Hope into a room are what pushed the two of them together.  Lizzy knows who should be together and makes sure they get there.  One of the greatest things she does is scare a customer in the middle of the night.  This customer has been such a pain for Hope, and the protective Lizzy wreaks her revenge by scaring the woman.  It is a great scene.

                

                There were a lot of parts in this book that confused me. This makes me wonder if it was written in a bit of a rush to get it published and on the shelves. So often I did not know how people got to places, who was talking, and where conversations came from. I would think one thing was being talked about and then the next line felt like something else completely. Despite this frustration, I finished the book in a matter of days. Nora Roberts wrapped up the series very well. There were not any unanswered questions and I felt things ended as they should. As this is the second group of books I have read of Ms. Roberts, I wonder what kind of series she will write next.