Crystal Cove

Crystal Cove is the fourth book in Lisa Kleypas’s Friday Harbor contemporary romance series, set on San Juan Island in the Pacific Northwest and following the Nolan brothers and their friends through the various complications of small town adult life. The series began with Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor and continued with Rainshadow Road and Dream Lake, with each book focusing on a different couple while keeping the connected San Juan Island world as the recurring setting.

This novel turns to Justine Hoffman, the proprietor of a small Friday Harbor bed and breakfast called the Artist’s Point Inn. Justine has spent her adult life avoiding romantic entanglement after a difficult experience in her past, and her careful arrangements are upended when a wealthy man named Jason Black arrives at the inn under unusual circumstances. The supernatural element that has been part of the Friday Harbor series, with each book including a touch of magic that the otherwise contemporary setting accommodates, plays a particular role in Crystal Cove. Justine is a witch whose family magical tradition runs through the entire history of San Juan Island, and Jason has been touched by a curse that only Justine’s particular gifts may be able to address.

Lisa Kleypas writes the kind of contemporary romance that combines real emotional substance with the warm small town setting that her readers enjoy returning to. The Friday Harbor series has been one of her departures from the historical romance work that built her reputation, and the contemporary novels show her working in a different register while keeping the careful character work and the patient plotting that distinguish her best fiction. The supernatural element is handled with a light touch that does not overwhelm the contemporary realism of the wider Friday Harbor world.

The friend group that anchors the Friday Harbor series across multiple books gives Crystal Cove the kind of connected cast that her readers love returning to. Characters from the earlier books appear in supporting roles, and Justine’s relationships with the other Nolan brothers and their partners provide additional weight beyond just the central romance with Jason.

For longtime Friday Harbor fans, Crystal Cove is a satisfying entry that develops the series toward its conclusion. For new readers, the series rewards being read in order, but Crystal Cove can be picked up as a standalone with some loss of context. Readers who enjoy Kleypas’s historical work will find a different but rewarding experience in her Friday Harbor contemporary novels.