The Crossroads Café

July 31, 2006
Two damaged people find love and redemption in bestseller Smith's latest, a heavy-on-the-syrup romance that drafts 9/11 into sentimental service. Cathy Deen is Hollywood's "it girl" until a paparazzi car chase ends in a car fire that horrifically scars Cathy, ending her glamorous life. News of the accident soon reaches her hometown in the mountains of North Carolina, where Cathy's cousin, Crossroads Café proprietress Delta Whittlespoon, sees the news on CNN and resolves to get in touch with Cathy. She enlists the help of Thomas Mitternich, a new addition to the Crossroads community who appeared in town four years ago to drink himself through the grief of losing his wife and son in 9/11. Thomas, using his New York contacts, helps Delta get through to Cathy, and after phone calls from Thomas and overnighted boxes of Delta's biscuits, Cathy returns to her ancestral home, where she falls in love with Thomas as they both try to rebuild their lives. Smith's prose does little to enliven a boilerplate plot, and 9/11 amounts to little more than an easy way to heap suffering on a character.

Starred review from August 15, 2006
When her charmed life and celebrity career go down in flames in a blazing car crash, Cathryn Deen, once flawlessly beautiful but now horribly scarred and emotionally devastated, seeks refuge and anonymity in her grandmother's empty house in the North Carolina Smoky Mountains. However, Cathryn's plans to be a recluse are thwarted when neighboring architect Thomas Mitternich, who lost his family in 9/11 and is determined to drown his guilt in vodka, comes into her life. A plethora of memorable secondary characters add depth, humor, and charm to this heart-wrenching story of two appealing characters who overcome soul-shattering tragedies to find themselves and each other. This beautifully written, emotionally complex story will appeal to fans of both romance and women's fiction. Smith ("Charming Grace") lives in the mountains of northern Georgia.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2006
Cathy is on top of the world--beautiful, rich, a top movie star about to launch a new career as a cosmetics queen--when an unscrupulous photographer in search of a story causes her car to crash and burn, destroying her perfect body as well as her career and sending her scurrying for a place to hide her scars. Thomas, on the other hand, is still mourning the deaths of his wife and young son in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and is slowly drinking himself to death while sleeping in the bed of his truck in an isolated hamlet in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains. Together, however, they find they are stronger and better people, and they begin to take an active interest in the mountain community that has taken them both into their hearts, and into their kitchens. Once again, Smith has created an unforgettably poignant story in the best tradition of contemporary southern romantic women's fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)