All A Man Can Do

Trouble In Eden #1

by Virginia Kantra

Look but don't touch...

Words to live by for Jarek Denko, a man looking to forget his past and find his future in Eden. He has a department to run, a daughter to raise and an investigation to solve. A relationship with any woman would be a distraction, but one with reporter Tess DeLucca - the sister of one of his prime suspects - could be his undoing.

Getting up close and personal with Eden's new chief of police is part of Tess's job. So is remaining dispassionate, objective and in control...three things that might be possible if she trusted cops. And if she weren't so damn attracted to this one!

Genres: Romance, Romantic Suspense, Contemporary Romance

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra is the author of thirty books of women's fiction, contemporary romance, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense.

Kindred spirits and Anne of Green Gables fans, look for Anne of a Different Island , coming January 20, 2026.

Her latest release, The Fairytale Life of Dorothy Gale , a contemporary reimagining inspired by Dorothy's adventures in Oz, follows Kansas graduate student Dee Gale as she flees personal heartbreak and public humiliation to enroll in the writing program at Trinity College Dublin (the Emerald Isle!).

Meg and Jo , a contemporary novel inspired by the classic story Little Women, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist and was a People Magazine pick.

Beth and Amy (May 25, 2021) "continues her delightful 21st-century retelling of Little Women...Kantra’s compulsively readable update will attract a whole new group of readers, as well as satisfy Alcott devotees."—Publishers Weekly

Her stories have earned numerous awards including two Romance Writers of America's RITA (R) Awards, ten RITA nominations, and two National Readers' Choice Awards.

Carolina Dreaming, the fifth book in her Dare Island series , won the 2017 RITA (R) Award for Best Contemporary Romance - Midlength and was named one of BookPage's Top Ten Romance Novels of 2016. Her work includes the popular Children of the Sea series and, in e-book format, The MacNeills stories.
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Reviews

[Deb Diem · Rating 4 out of 5]

All A Man Can Do is my first book by Virginia Kantra, but won't be my last. Ms. Kantra has provided readers with a well-written book. The characters are imperfect people but perfect for this book. Jarek left his detective position in Chicago to take the Chief of Police job in small-town Eden. Tess is a reporter for the Eden paper. Tess and Jarek's story is loaded with drama, humor, spice, action and suspense. I enjoyed reading All A Man Can Do and look forward to my next book by Virginia Kantra. All A Man Can Do is book 1 of the Trouble In Eden Series but can be read as a standalone. This is a complete book, not a cliff-hanger.

I read a print copy of this book.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the characters, but the pacing felt off. As if it was all intro, little middle, then a too-quick resolution.

[Hilly · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Rounding down because it's not really complete enough to be a stand-alone book.

Average, superficial, nothing notable but that the town was the antithesis of its namesake. Most interesting character was the cat.

Curiously, it ended too soon, and so abruptly that I have to imagine that the subsequent books in the series will pick up the many unresolved threads.

Widower and new Police Chief, Jarek Denko, who moved to a small town for the sake of his daughter, gets it on with local reporter Tess.

After meeting the other town residents, I hope that Jarek grabs his daughter & Tess and gets the heck outta Dodge! What an awful place to put down roots! Run, Jarek! Run away!!!

[Sabrina Jeffries · Rating 5 out of 5]

More lush heroes from Kantra. Eden is a small town outside of Chicago. The heroes of the first two books are Polish brothers who are cops. One has just become the police chief of Eden, and the second is bound and determined not to marry…until he meets the right girl, of course. You meet the third hero in the first book when he's suspected of murder by the police chief who falls for his sister. Of course, he isn't guilty--except of being criminally sexy! If you want more of a blurb about them, just go to Virginia Kantra's site. The books were so good that I read them at Disneyworld while waiting for rides. I couldn't bear to stop!

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book.
Fresh off reading Carolina Home, I thought another story about a small town by the same author would be fabulous. But the first few chapters were jarring because the chemistry *really* wasn't believable, and I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters. The daughter was, at best, convenient. She wasn't really part of the hero's life - when the author didn't need her, she was carted off to live with her grandparents some more. The truly unfortunate simile on page 135 only added to my list of complaints.
I'll try the next one in the series, but if things don't improve I'm giving up on this set.

[Susannah Carleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story of a big-city police detective, Jarek Denko, becoming a small-town police chief and learning about his new town and its people. Since the death of his ex-wife a year ago, he's also a single parent to his ten-year-old daughter. One of the first people he meets in town, aside from his officers, is Tess DeLucca, a reporter for the town's weekly paper. He agrees to her request for an interview with reservations, but he's pleased with her article, as well as with her factual and even-handed reporting of the news. She's prickly, but something about her intrigues him and makes him want to get to know her better. That pleasure may have to wait until he solves a string of assaults committed by a man with police-type lights on his vehicle--a police officer, a firefighter, or an emergency responder. Will Jarek find the villain before another woman is hurt?