summer romance – Page 2

Rating: ★★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 368 pages
Author: Annabel Monaghan
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s
Release Date: June 4th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Benefits of a summer romance: it’s always fun, always brief, and no one gets their heart broken.

There aren’t enough labeled glass containers to contain the mess that is Ali Morris’s life. Her mom died two years ago, then her husband left, and she hasn’t worn pants with a zipper in longer than she cares to remember. She’s a professional organizer whose pantry is a disgrace.

No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware—overalls count, right?—she meets someone. Or rather, her dog claims a man for her in the same way he claimed his favorite of her three children: by peeing on him. Ethan smiles at Ali like her pants are just right—like he likes what he sees. The last thing Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little Summer Romance. Is there?

JUST WHAT I NEEDED.

I haven’t been getting along with contemporary romances lately and this was the gem I needed to remind me of the goodness they can bring. I loved this book so much!! It was full of heart and doing the hard things and breaking off what isn’t working anymore to find what could be.

The romance had me absolutely smitten. This is how you craft a summer romance. I loved Ethan, he was such a sweetheart and was so KIND. Gosh it was soul melting. And I loved seeing Ali grow and expand and realize how confined she had been for too long. I loved the motherhood aspects as well as the acknowledgement of what she needed as a person to be the best Ali.

There were so many lovely moments throughout. It’s a fast read and an amazing one. I think this is my new favorite from Monaghan. It is a must for summer TBRs!!

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary Romance
Language: low-moderate
Romance: fade to black
Content Warnings: loss of loved ones, depictions of grief, FMC is going through a divorce

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Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5)
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 320 pages
Author: Carley Fortune
Publisher: Berkley Romance
Release Date: May 10th, 2022
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.

They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.

Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

Thank you to Berkley and Netgalley for an eARC.

BINGE WORTHY.

These types of reads both haunt me and make me the happiest. Why? Because the format of dual timelines where you’re not quite sure what caused the fallout causes LACK OF SLEEP. I binged this in a day chasing down the reason Percy and Sam fell apart and hoping they’d find their way back together.

It was an interesting tiny tidbit that when they ran into each other again there wasn’t immediate animosity. I really liked that they were able to already find some common ground to reconnect and rehash what happened between them.

The trope of childhood friends to lovers was written beautifully. I loved the sweet friendship that started to become longing looks and brief touches to finally saying OH HEY I LIKE YOU. Ah, young love. Percy and Sam definitely get in their own ways sometimes, but somehow it was endearing. Fortune’s ability to craft this story was amazing. All the mess that can come with first love and rekindling that love years later had me glued to my book.

I do stand by that I just didn’t love the last big piece of information needed to answer why there’s been so many years apart. I AM grateful that it was handled really well. The drama had already been thrown down so at this point, I thought the characters all approached it in a realistic way. Which all led to a sweet ending.

Great read, highly recommend. Perfect for summertime!

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary Romance
Language: a little
Romance: multiple brief open door
Trigger/Content Warnings: loss of a parent(s), infidelity, on page panic attacks, anxiety