Category: July Reads

TSM Book Club Book #28: Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams

Posted in July Reads, TSM Book ClubTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Started: July 7th
Finished: July 11th
TSM Rating: 5/5

This was such a lovely follow-up to When in Rome. Sweet Annie and Broody Will have such endearing chemistry right from the start that it was hard to put this book down.

Basic backgrounds, Annie is the youngest sister of Noah Walker, our hero from When In Rome, and Will Amelia’s favorite bodyguard. Thus when our story starts, they meet again on what happens to be a mortifying moment for our heroine. Her date is in the process of ditching her when Will walks in with a date of his own.

From the beginning, it is clear to everyone — except Annie and Will, of course — that they are in love with each other. So much so that the town starts a petition to end the non-existent relationship, which forces them into a fake relationship. And feelings bloom.

Annie is on a journey to come out of her shell and be seen by her family and everyone else in town as a one-dimensional, happy-go-lucky girl. Will just wants to do his job — protect Amelia in the month leading up to her and Noah’s wedding — and get out of this very close-knit, incredibly nosy town.

I love the way these two fall in love. Knowing Will allows Annie to find the confidence to stand up for herself. Sometimes it only takes one person really seeing you to help you see yourself.

I was looking for the perfect person with the perfect traits and the perfect timing, when really all my heart actually wants is to be filly known and loved. Someone to share the quiet moments with — someone to turn to when everything is good or everything is bad. Someone who wouldn’t be mad if I snuck in to see him before the wedding and ruined traditions — but who’d be just as eager to be with me as I’d be with him. Someone like…Will

Annie, Practice Makes Perfect, pg. 317

Coming into this, Will was the anti-relationship guy…until he met a girl who helped him see that not all relationships have to be as volatile as his parents.

Last night as I listened to Annie talk about the kind of future she wanted, I felt that relentless tug in my chest again. Not because I want the harvest-parties and soccer-games life she mentioned, but because I want the ability to dream a life with someone like Annie where my immediate thought isn’t: But how is it going to fail?

Will, Practice Makes Perfect, pg. 107

This book is as much about facing the past as looking toward the future. Both Annie and Will have to overcome traumatic childhoods to become who they need to be for each other. I loved this one more than When in Rome. There was so much more charm with Will and Annie. So much more sweetness. Definitely a must-read!

TSM Book Club Book #27: Will They Or Won’t They by Ava Wilder

Posted in July Reads, TSM Book ClubTagged , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Started: July 1st
Finished: July 6th
TSM Rating: 5/5

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year and I wasn’t disappointed.

I’m going to be honest, I loved Shane instantly, but it took awhile for Lilah to grow on me. She was such a frustrating character to root for. And this is coming from someone who can get lost in her own mind and feelings from time to time.

These two had such an epic meet cute at the beginning. Eyes meeting across a room, instant “this-one-is-going-to-be-different” attraction.

She realized belatedly that she’d gone too long staring at him without saying anything. He was still watching her, the corner of his mouth quirking up in amusement. Dimple, she thought stupidly, involuntarily.

WTOWT, pg. 10

Then a slow burn get together that goes down in flames. Which for most relationships is just the end, but the rebuilding of that fire from the cinder was epic. Ava Wilder really makes you work for their reconnection. She makes them work for it.

It would have been so easy for her to have these two characters fall right back into bed with angry, hateful sex right at the beginning, but that’s not what this couple is about. That first meeting was epic and life altering. It’s not something you want to mess up twice.

While Lilah is tough and emotionally reserved, Shane is softer and kinder, and emotionally available. He’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, his reaction to Lilah abruptly dumping him was immature at best. Most of his actions come from a place of hurt and fear.

What Ava Wilder does best with this and her first novel, How to Fake it in Hollywood, is building the anticipation and allowing her character space to grow and work on their flaws.

She suddenly understood, with a nauseating surge or regret, what a precious thing she’d been so careless with all those years ago, too blinded by distrust and self-loathing to see it standing right in front of her, if only been brave enough to reach for it.

WTOWT, pg. 182

I enjoyed this book so much. It was totally worth the wait.

TSM Book Club Book #30: How To Talk To A Widower by Jonathan Tropper

Posted in July Reads, TSM Book ClubTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Started: July 24th
Finished: July 31st
TSM Rating: 4/5

This book was definitely different from the romance I’ve been reading lately. Don’t get me wrong, there is lots of love in this book, but not romance, which was why I picked it. Just for something a little different.

Doug is in mourning. He’s 29 years old and his wife died in a plane crash. He’s a man set adrift, unanchored, unable to find his way back to dry land. He’s allowed himself to descend into the morasses of grief and hopelessness, avoiding the rest of the living world, including his stepson who has lost his mother and is also adrift in his grief.

Throughout the book he repeats these four sentences:

I had a wife. Her name was Hailey. Now she’s gone. And so am I.

How to Talk to a Widower, multiple pages

As he’s stuck in this rut, his pregnant twin sister decides to leave her husband, while his baby sister is planning to marry his friend, whom she met while sitting shiva for Hailey. On top of it all, his father had a stroke and is only lucid enough to be remember that Hailey has died about five percent of the time.

Grief is a funny thing. It has no schedule or timeline. It can put you in a strangle hold so tight that it feels like it will never let go. But with time, patience, and little grace you can get there.

While Doug isn’t quite a lovable protagonist, you do feel for him and the depths of his despair and his apprehensions about moving forward and on and what that means for his wife’s memory.

TSM Book Club Book #29: The Duchess Effect by Tracey Livesay

Posted in July Reads, TSM Book ClubTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Started: July 11th
Finished: July 22nd
TSM Rating: 4/5

Another highly anticipated read for me. While I liked it, I was so frustrated with Dani in this book. I understood her motivations, but I wanted her to make different choices. Prince Jameson wins by being charming, kind, and sexy.

The Duchess Effect is the sequel to American Royalty. Jameson and Duchess are still riding high in the early stages of their romance, although they’ve spent most of their time behind closed doors and away from the public. It’s easy to be in love and make promises when you aren’t putting your relationship to the test by letting it exist in the real world.

It’s the test and how Duchess responds to it that almost breaks them. Instead of trusting that Jameson would help her and show up for her, she decides to hide the truth from him.

At the beginning of the book, they make a pact to stay out of each other’s professional lives. To keep their relationship solely about them, but when Duchess’s professional future becomes unfortunately tied to Jameson, she does. There are several moments when she can come clean but chooses not to out of a misguided — albeit based on past trauma — belief that he’ll leave her.

For his part, Jameson is a little bit obtuse about certain things. He publicly declared to the media that he and Duchess were in love but then tried to put them back in the box by avoiding the press. Jameson doesn’t fully grasp what kind of pressure truly being together puts on Duchess. Also, there are points where different parts of her personality come out — Spades, anyone — and he internally balks as if she doesn’t contain multitudes.

Overall, I liked the book. It was a worthy follow-up and answered many questions left open in the first book.