Nora Roberts - The return of Rafe MacKade

The first book in the MacKade Brothers series, published February 23, 1996.
Genre: contemporary romance
Cover: oldfashioned



Ten years after disappearing from Antietam, Maryland, the bad boy has returned. Cleaned up and successful now - and still dangerously good-looking. Rafe MacKade sets the town on fire, and tongues wagging.
Lovely newcomer Regan Jones is intrigued - what kind of man could cause this sort of talk? She's just about to find out …


The four MacKade brothers: Rafe, Jared, Shane and Devin. Always looking for trouble (and often finding it), they grew up in Antietam, a village riddled with ghosts and stories of the Battle of Antietam. Rafe is the oldest and the most restless. When their mother died, he just had to leave, and make something of himself or he would end up in jail as "they" predicted. So he left, and he did make something of himself, he worked hard, but he found his calling in buying houses, fixing them up, and selling them again for a profit.
As a young boy, he always had an affinity with the old Barlow place. And now he is back home, and he has bought the place, determined to renovate it and turn it into a Bed and Breakfast. If he can find enough of a crew that don't mind the ghosts living there…

Regan Jones has been living in Antietam for about three years, and owns an antique shop. She is curious about the man who is generating so much gossip. So when they meet and he challenges her to furnish his house, make it look as it used to be, she happily accepts his challenge. If she can pull this of, it will be a very good thing for her reputation and her bank account.

And there is this huge attraction between them, but Rafe is not in the market for a relationship. Or so he thinks.

Then there is Regan's friend Cassie Dolin, who is being abused by her husband Joe, a man all the MacKade's really loathe, but they can't do anything about it. And that eats at Devin especially, as he has become the town sheriff. Until Joe does cross a line with Cassie, and she finally leaves him (against her mother's admonishing that a wife's place is with her husband, no matter what). Regan takes her and her children Emma and Connor in, but Joe will not just give up without a fight to get back his wife … It will take much more than a restraining order for that …


A heartbreaking story at times, especially with the background on some of the ghosts living in Antietam. I do hope that throughout this series, they will be put to rest. I know I have read one or two of these books in Dutch a long time ago, but can't remember much of it. As the book I have is a duology, I will be reading Jared's book next.

I liked the romance between Rafe and Regan, and Regan certainly is not a doormat, or one of those heroines who just melt and become mindless as soon as she is kissed by the hero. She is strong, and I do love that in my heroines. She also has visions of the past, of what happened in the house, and that is scaring her, but she just stays and handles it.

I loved the ending a lot, when Rafe gives in, totally unexpected.

9 stars.

© 2015 Reviews by Aurian