"Mara Purl continues her serial in Closer Than You Think. Part small-town confidential, part mystery, part romance, the story is cozy in the best sense of the word. Steeped in California charm, the setting plays host to a wide variety of characters from across the social spectrum. High society rubs shoulders with artists and diner cooks, providing a snap shot of an up-scale village. Despite the town’s air of quaint charm, the people are refreshingly realistic. Closer Than You Think is a fun and engaging excursion to Milford-Haven; you’re sure to enjoy the visit."
– Bookwire

"The second Milford-Haven novel, chronicling life in a small coastal town, Closer Than You Think is the at-times-romantic, at-times-mysterious sequel to What the Heart Knows. Award-winning writer Mara Purl deepens the intrigue in this captivating window into the little battles, victories, successes, and failings of ordinary people in (the) complicated world (of) Milford-Haven."

– Midwest Book Review

"In Mara Purl’s books the writing is crisp and clean, the dialogue realistic, the scenes well described. I salute her ingenuity."
– Bob Johnson, Former Managing Editor, The Associated Press

"Every reader who enjoys book series about small town life has a treat to anticipate in…Mara Purl’s Milford-Haven Novels."
– Dee Ann Ray, The Clinton Daily News

"… in a series of romantic novels centered in the fictional California coastal town of Milford-Haven, we meet…an intrigu[ing] cast of diverse characters."
– Fred Klein, Santa Barbara News Press

Mara Purl's second novel takes her readers to the edge of their seats and deals so honestly with the characters in her quaint little town that she puts today's toughest issues on the emotional map.
Speaking both to new readers and to the built-in audience from her hit radio series Milford-Haven, U.S.A. - which had four and a half million listeners on the BBC - Purl expands beyond the original broadcasts but sticks with her original themes. She uses environmental issues for latitude, but it's the longitude of emotions that make the story compelling as some try to navigate without a compass and others exhibit their innate sense of true north.
Samantha Hugo as head of the Environmental Planning Commission faces off with corrupt builder Jack Sawyer - but he's also her ex-husband; Zackery Calvin falls in love with wildlife painter Miranda Jones - but he works for an oil company. Chris Christian has gone missing while pursuing a story about the corporate ownership of a house under construction - but the CEO has ties to oil interests.
When it comes to exterior beauty, Purl's vivid images of her California coastal setting are so compelling, she's actually helped to increase tourist trade in the real coastal towns upon which her fictitious one is modeled - notably, Cambria, San Simeon and Morro Bay.
And nowhere is the interior navigation of the soul more evident than in Samantha Hugo's journal entry, which again ends this book, as it did the last. Unafraid to reveal her own shortcomings, one feels the author is doing some soul-searching of her own in this final chapter, while making an eloquent plea for environmental awareness as a kind of emblem of spiritual progress.
If you find yourself lost in the cross currents of fiction, your treasure map may be Closer Than You Think.

A few years ago, if anyone had told author Mara Purl she had small towns in her future, she’d have laughed. Why? Because this is a woman who grew up in Tokyo, Japan, then spent several years in New York City, and finally settled in Los Angeles, California. Hardly a small town girl. But that was before she spent a summer performing in the tiny coastal town of Cambria, and had her first taste of life in the slow lane. Turns out she loved it.

It was the following Fall while performing a regular role on "Days of Our Lives" that she realized she wanted to create her own soap opera. Basing it loosely on the real Cambria—a Welsh name—she found the name of a real Welsh town for her fictitious one. Her stirring radio plays together with an all-star cast landed her a contract as the first American radio serial ever broadcast by the BBC. And the rest, as they say, is history. Milford-Haven USA went on to achieve a cult following in the U.K. with 4.5 million listeners—a following that has persisted long after its initial airing.It led Purl to begin writing a series of novels based on the show. "Nothing could make me happier," Purl enthused. "I loved doing the radio drama, but I feel I’ve come home in writing the novels."

Mara Purl honed her researching and writing skills with the Associated Press, Rolling Stone, The Financial Times of London, Working Woman Magazine, and The Christian Science Monitor, to name a few. And while a student at ASIJ and later at Sophia University, she wrote a column for the Mainichi Daily News. But she’s spent equal time as a performer on-camera and on-stage, with her regular character on Days Of Our Lives having been her starting point for soap opera.

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