I've read several Susan Wiggs books in the past. I haven't read one in awhile, but I remember liking her stories and characters in past books I've read.

Unfortunately, this one didn't work for me at all.

It was full of cliches and tropes. The dialogue was awkward and stilted. The characters lacked depth.
The romance, which was the reason I picked this book up in the first place, was lukewarm to the point of being completely unbelievable. The two characters don't even meet until 200 pages into the novel. Until that point, it was Sarah complaining about her ex-husband being an ass and him complaining that his teenage daughter is acting like a teenager.
Huge chunks of time pass in the course of a sentence and while we're told that these two people are spending all of this time together and falling for each other, we don't actually see it happen. They have a couple of awkward conversations and zero spark.

There was also a few comments made in this book regarding a lesbian couple that made me uncomfortable. One of the women has a daughter who is 'totally skeezed out' by the relationship. There is another point where the relationship is described as 'totally unacceptable'. It seems like this was supposed to be illustrating the daughter's view of the relationship, but the words were actually in another characters POV. In the end, when it's revealed that

the daughter of the woman in a relationship with another woman is the person who has been committing arson around town because she couldn't deal with the fact that her mother is in love with another woman

it's pretty much glossed over. There are almost no consequences, and we don't actually see our male protagonist solving the case. It happens off-page and we learn about it after the fact. It's completely unnecessary to the story, and feels like something that was just tacked on.

I'm glad I read this book in the sense that it's now off my TBR, but I'm bummed I didn't like it more.