You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO comes from Holly, who wants to find this contemporary romance:
I’m looking for a book with the following details:
Contemporary.
The heroine inherits a brownstone in Boston from her estranged father. I believe her late father had been a famous academic or author. The house has a widow’s walk and also a beautiful garden out back. There’s a gardener, who ends up being more than a gardener (the hero).
That’s all I remember. I’m going to guess this book is approximately twenty years old.
I’m glad Holly specified contemporary, because I thought this could go either way in terms of genre.
Flirting With Pete
by
Barbara Delinsky
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I have no idea what this book is but I am very familiar with Boston brownstones with garden. Wowza that is some expensive property in the Back Bay I betcha.
Also, when I receive the HABO, it usually follows the list of books on sale and once again, that did not appear in my email.
I’m looking into that problem – thanks.
It sounds like SWEET LIAR from Jude Deveraux. The hero is the landlord rather than a gardener. She’s fulfilling a dying wish from her father to find out what happened to her grandmother.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251972.Sweet_Liar
It sounds like SWEET LIAR by Jude Deveraux. The hero is the landlord rather than a gardener, though. The heroine is asked to fulfill a dying wish from her father to find out what happened to her grandmother.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251972.Sweet_Liar?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=B7Tn0eXdqC&rank=1
Barbara Michaels maybe?
I don’t think it’s Sweet Liar – I like that book a lot and if I remember correctly, the father delays her inheritance until she’s lived in the apartment in a brownstone in New York and finds out what happened to her grandmother.
Long long long time lurker – I think it is Flirting with Pete by Barbara Delinsky – The book would probably be classified as Woman’s Fiction/Chick Lit/(insert your preferred genre name). Published in 2003.
Synopsis:Good or bad, the effect our parents have on us is profound. Winning their approval is often key in our lives.
Casey Ellis, the protagonist of Flirting With Pete, knows this all too well. Born after a one-night stand and raised by her mother, she has always wanted to catch the eye of her father. To that end, she went into his field, settled in his city, and appeared at every possible event where she knew he would be. But he didn’t acknowledge her once.
As Flirting With Pete opens, he has just died and left her his beautiful townhouse on Boston’s posh Beacon Hill. Furious that he has squandered their relationship, she is determined to sell the townhouse. Then she visits and is intrigued by the spectacular hidden garden out back, the dark and mysterious gardener, and a journal in the desk detailing the harrowing tale of a young woman named Jenny Clyde.
I haven’t read it, but I searched for it using keywords (librarian power!) and thought it might be Flirting with Pete by Barbara Delinsky? It has some of the right elements – there’s a heroine who inherits a Boston townhouse from her father and a gardener named Jordan that she has a relationship with. It sounds like there’s also a mystery going on in the book. Might not be right, but I wanted to share just in case.
Another vote for Flirting with Pete! I read it back in the day and my vague memory of it fits with the HaBo.
Yes! Barbara Delinsky! She likes gardeners.
AMB, Mandy, Cleo- it’s definitely Flirting with Pete!
This has driven me nuts for a decade at least.
Thank you so much to everyone who helped with ideas.
Flirting with Pete .
@Holly – YAY! You’ll have to report back in one of the open threads after you read it. I remember that it was pretty crazy-sauce – I’m curious how it holds up.
I knew it sounded familiar to me, and I agree with Flirting With Pete. It was so crazy sauce that it annoyed the heck out of me, honestly, and I generally like Barbara Delinsky’s books.