Starting over, Anna Barlow is determined to leave everything about her childhood behind. A new name, a new career, and a new look—everything about her has changed since the night she became pregnant with her daughter Becca. Anna finds out just how different she looks when an emergency farm call brings her face to face with Becca’s father…and he’s clueless about her identity.

Taking a break from the competitive world of show-jumping, Chris Stevenson has returned to the family farm to straighten out his life. Everything’s been wrong for the last year…since the night that he can’t remember anything about. When he meets Anna, the area’s newest veterinarian, he feels an instant attraction and yet has the feeling of déjà vu.

As Anna and Chris struggle to reconcile the night Chris can’t remember, they’ll have to learn to trust each other and discover what family really means. Bittersweet by Laura Browning is a loosely connected sequel to her previous book, Winning Heart. Both books take place in the horse farm district of North Carolina among the rich and hard working show horse circle. While this book introduces us to several new characters, there are several characters from the previous book who make an appearance, including Chris Stevenson, one of the main characters in this book. While it’s not necessary to read the previous book in order to read this one, I think it helped me see some of the character growth taking place. Once again Ms. Browning’s writing style captivated my attention and drew me into the romance and action of her story.

At the beginning of this story, we are introduced to Anna Barlow, a young, single mother, who’s starting life over with a new job in a new town. The newest veterinarian in an established practice, she’s on call when an emergency at one of the practice’s largest clients brings her face to face with a man from her past, Chris Stevenson. He doesn’t seem to remember her or the night they spent together, which resulted in the birth of her daughter, Becca. As Anna struggles to reconcile the woman she was in the past with the woman she is now, she’ll have to face everything she thinks she knows about Chris and that one night in her past. While she originally planned on staying away from Chris, Anna can’t deny the attraction between them or the connection they already share. Will their second chance at love end bitter or sweet? Ms. Browning did a really good job developing Anna’s character throughout this story—she’s both emotionally fragile and outwardly hostile towards Chris, with good reason, until she realizes the past isn’t what she thought and the man she thought she knew is really very different.

Chris Stevenson is a champion horse jumper and breeder. The star of the show horse circuit, he is to horse jumping what Tiger Woods is to golf. His good looks have given him lots of female fans with fantasies of being the woman in his arms. All of this attention has made him somewhat jaded and has taken some of the joy out of his accomplishments. After a night of hard partying, he wakes up drunk and can’t remember anything that happened the night before. Deciding to get his life back on track, Chris decides to take some time off from the circuit, work with his horses, and reconnect with his family. When an emergency call to the local veterinary practice late one night brings Anna to his barn, he’s surprised to discover the new vet is a woman and that she’s strangely familiar. He knows he’s met her somewhere before, but can’t remember and doesn’t understand her hostility. Determined to discover what lies between them and hopefully discover what happened one night, Chris discovers the love of his life. Ms. Browning did a really good job developing Chris’s character—he’s young and good looking, and even though he had to work hard to get where he is, he’s immature and is focused on himself and only what he wants. As he gets to know Anna and spend time with her and Becca, Chris is forced to face who he is and learn what family and being a grown up is all about.7

The scenes between Anna and Chris are full of smoldering passion, intense physical attraction, and emotional angst. While Anna knows what’s taken place between them, Chris has no idea he’s Becca’s father. While at first Anna is determined to keep her distance from him, Chris is determined to discover all of her secrets and as they spend time together, he is even surer he’s met her before; he wants to know who she really is. When he begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together, they lead him back to the missing night of his life and the discovery that they’re the intended victims of a well thought out blackmail plan; he’s determined to shield Anna and Becca from harm. Ms. Browning did an excellent job developing the romance between Anna and Chris; while the attraction between them is hot and the sex is hotter, their emotional differences will take some real work. They have to get past Anna’s difficult childhood and discover who they really are.

The secondary characters in this story are well developed. I was especially happy to see that Wynter and Nelson Anderson, the main characters in Ms. Browning’s previous book, made an appearance. I also loved David and Liz Stevenson, Chris’s parents, who provided Chris and Anna with a lot of emotional support and occasionally some direction in regards to being a family. We also meet two of Anna’s older brothers, Seth and Brandon Barrow-Barrett and learn about Anna’s difficult childhood. We even meet Anna’s father, Alexander Barrow-Barrett, who was easy to dislike at first but made some emotional growth of his own. The antagonists in the story were also well developed and got the justice that they deserved.

After the mystery of Chris’s missing night is solved and Anna’s full identity is revealed, will Chris and Anna’s relationship last? And will they finally be the family they long to be? You’ll have to read Bittersweet to find out. I loved it and can’t wait to read what Ms. Browning writes next.