Jen Devon's debut novel, Bend Toward the Sun, is a sweepingly emotional romance with gorgeous prose that transports readers to a verdant vineyard in rural Pennsylvania. Obstetrician Harrison Brady is reeling from the traumatic death of a first-time mother--a woman he had volunteered to help--who, during a traffic jam, hemorrhaged after giving birth and died. Harry has just arrived at his family's new vineyard home when a game of tag leads him to botanist Rowan McKinnon, hiding in a greenhouse. Though their attraction is immediate, Rowan is avoiding emotional entanglement as determinedly as Harry is pursuing her affection.
Rowan is struggling to salvage the most important academic and professional achievement of her career after her research assistant was exposed as a fraud. When her best friend sends the Brady family her résumé, Rowan agrees to bring their struggling vineyard back to life. As months pass, Devon subtly draws parallels between Rowan's and Harry's individual journeys back to health and the gradual, beautiful rebirth of the land under their dedicated stewardship.
Devon's prose is as lush as the plant life she lovingly describes, and the way the Brady family embraces Rowan and Harry will comfort even the most jaded readers of romance. These two characters have a lot of work to do; their wounds lead to a love story defined by a desperate yearning as undeniable as the seasons. Readers looking for a dramatic contemporary romance with deep character work, a gorgeous setting and the kind of love that makes hearts ache will adore Bend Toward the Sun. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian and freelance reviewer