Showing posts with label Romantic Dilemmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romantic Dilemmas. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Friends to Lovers

A strong, spirited first novel, a romcom, where friends turn into lovers and then turn into friends again until…Well, that’s to be determined!

Summertime takes a starring role in Friends to Lovers by Sally Blakely, a fun, spirited romcom sure to add sunshine to reader’s lives.

Joni and Ren are long-time friends who met as children in their hometown of Portland, Oregon. The two share a long history. Still single, they are both closing in on their 30s. And while Joni set off to take a dream job New York City, the two made a pact kept throughout their 20s: they’d always serve as each other’s “plus ones” (dates) every wedding season. That was, until the last wedding they attended together suddenly transformed friendship into romantic love. Uh-oh!

 

When Joni comes back home to attend her sister’s wedding, she and Ren awkwardly reunite, pretending to pick up as if their rendezvous never happened. In reality, the pair struggle to reconcile their actions and feelings; while also trying to gauge the prospect of what they really want for the future.

 

Short chapters and a staggered time-line narrated by the pull-and-tug of romantic dilemmas faced by these two, endearing characters offer a perfect summer escape. This first novel by Blakely delivers a strong start, sure to develop into a long-term relationship with romcom readers!

 

Friends to Lovers by Sally Blakely

Canary Street Press (HarperCollins/MIRA/Harlequin), $18.99 paperback, 9781335014245, 352 pages

Publication Date: July 22, 2025

To order this book on Bookshop.org link HERE

Link HERE to learn more about Sally Blakely

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake

A flirty rom-com about a passionate young woman with ADHD who falls hard for an Australian visiting Philadelphia -- a man who suddenly upends her life...and his own.

As in her prior novel
,
A Brush with Love (see my review below), neurodiverse author, Mazey Eddings returns to share another lively, edgy rom-com about a young, single woman grappling with life, sex and love. In Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake, Eddings introduces readers to Philadelphian, Lizzie Blake, a woman with great intensity and passion struggling with a slew of faux pas that prohibit her from having stability in her life – be it via employment, the acceptance of her parents or beaus. Afflicted with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), down-on-her-luck, Lizzie, who prefers one-night-stands to serious relationships, succumbs to a romp with Rake, a “hot Australian” she meets at a bar, whose past romantic baggage has made him swear off relationships and hook-ups, too, for that matter. But Rake finds the passionate, sexy charm of madcap Lizzie irresistible—and vice-versa. Their one-night stand leads to two, which then leads to an unwanted pregnancy—all of which forces the impulsive couple to rethink who they are and what they really want out of life.

Eddings has professed that her “personal mission in life” is to “destigmatize mental health issues and write love stories for every brain.” In her creation of Lizzy Blake, she proves, yet again, she has the knack for capturing the true essence of marginalized characters who cleverly come into their own—with many adventures and surprises along the way. Once again, Eddings delivers a lusty, snarky, “lovers-to-friends-to-soul-mates” romantic comedy that greatly entertains while mining hot-button contemporary issues in a fun, accessible way.

 

Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake (A Brush with Love Book Two) by Mazey Eddings

St. Martin’s Griffin, $16.99 paperback, 9780778312000, 336 pages

Publication Date: September 6, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

Romance

A Brush with Love

by Mazey Eddings

Only a writer as creative and perceptive as neurodiverse author Mazey Eddings could have made a dental school in Philadelphia, Pa., the perfect place to set an edgy romantic comedy. In A Brush with Love, her first novel, she plumbs deep roots, both literally and metaphorically, exploring challenges faced by two young dental students. Their unexpected chance meeting upends their lives.

Harper is an intense person, a driven perfectionist, whose battle with a general anxiety disorder stems from the sudden loss of her parents when she was only 12. She has succeeded in being a top student at Callowhill University's School of Dental Medicine, channeling protracted sorrow by throwing herself headlong into her medical studies. As a senior near graduation--though she intends to continue studies in oral surgery--one day she falls down a flight of stairs onto a freshman named Dan, completely destroying a 3D model made for one of his courses. Dan wanted a career in finance but, faced with familial expectations, he begrudgingly enrolled in dental school. Their meet-cute collision ignites a spark that turns into a romance. Their attraction, however, brings their individual sordid pasts and emotional scars to the fore, challenging what they know about themselves, each other and the push and pull of their lusty passions.

Eddings's energetic story appears, on the surface, entertainingly frothy. However, as she focuses on her quirky characters--revealing who they truly are and why--readers will discover much deeper, thought-provoking emotional issues. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Discover: In this lusty rom-com, two dental students are tested by the truth of who they are on their road to love and self-actualization.

St. Martin's Griffin, $16.99, paperback, 336p., 9781250805980

NOTE: This review for A BRUSH WITH LOVE was featured on Shelf Awareness for Readers on Friday, March 4, 2022. To read the review as originally published link HERE

 

 

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

28 Summers


Star-crossed soulmates rekindle their romance, love and perpetual loyalty one weekend every year--for 28 years.

Elin Hilderbrand tugs on readers' heartstrings with great aplomb. In 28 Summers, she begins at the end of a long-term, unconventional romance and weaves the captivating story of star-crossed lovers through 28 years of history. 

The 1978 movie Same Time, Next Year--an American romantic-comedy-drama--serves as inspiration to the structure of the story and to main characters Mallory Blessing and Jake McCloud, who are fans of the film. Mallory and Jake developed an easy, flirtatious camaraderie over the phone while Jake and Cooper, Mallory's brother, roomed together at college. The two meet face-to-face only in 1993, while in their 20s--after Mallory inherits a Nantucket beach house from her aunt. Mallory plays host to soon-to-be-married Cooper and his friends, who gather on the island for his bachelor party on Labor Day weekend. The gathering goes bust on many levels, but Mallory and Jake forge an intimate bond--a soulmate connection--amid the mayhem and vow that every year, on Labor Day weekend, they should meet up again, just like in the iconic film.

For the next 28 years, the couple fulfills their pact, having contact with each other for only one weekend annually, where they secretly rekindle their romance and share the travails of their private lives--the challenges and sacrifices of dating and marriage to other people, parenthood and career pursuits. Careful plotting binds this deeply moving, powerful story. Hilderbrand (Summer of 69The Perfect Couple) successfully entwines a host of surprising twists where multi-faceted characters become ensnared in thought-provoking romantic dilemmas.
28 Summers: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand
Little, Brown and Company, $28.00 Hardcover, 9780316420044, 432 pages
Publication Date: June 16, 2020
To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (June 19, 2020), link HERE