Author: Tyrel van Niekerk
Published: 2024
Rating: 3/5
Bad things happen to good people in Tyrel van Niekerk’s Inn of New Beginnings. Jack, a firefighter, is an American hero who has a career he enjoys and a family who loves him. Jack’s world is upended, however, when he is called into action to a blazing inferno at an apartment building – his apartment building. His family is lost in the blaze, and with them Jack loses his hopes and dreams for the future.
Suffering from PTSD and heartbroken, Jack is presented with an opportunity to take over a family Inn in Maine. Jack accepts the offer, and begins work learning how to run the business while rebuilding his life. In the process, he befriends one of the locals who runs a restaurant and meets her granddaughter, Stacey, who he has trouble getting out of his mind after their initial meeting.
When the restaurant catches fire with Jack nearby, he rushes to help. The aftermath only brings Jack and Stacey closer, and a romance unexpectedly blossoms between the two.
As his newfound romance begins to ramp up, so does Jack’s troubles. The Inn is several hundreds of years old, and rumored to have been part of not only of the Underground Railroad, but also to be the resting place for one of the largest pirate treasures in history. Someone is lurking around the Inn, on an apparent hunt for the rumored treasure, which puts Jack and Stacey in harms way.
van Niekerk has done a fantastic job crafting relatable characters at the center of a fast-moving plot that makes the Inn of New Beginnings an enjoyable and quick read. The supposed buried treasure and the hunt to find it brings an appreciated and unexpected element of danger and mystery to an otherwise traditional saccharine romance plot, and will make this novel enjoyable for both romance and thriller fans alike.
Note: I received a free copy of this book through Reedsy Discovery. This is my honest review and the opinions are my own.