Short Take Reviews x 5: 4 Contemporary Romances + 1 YA

Here's a handful of quick reviews that are something of a mixed bag. A few were really enjoyable but a couple were not so great, including, I'm sad to say, an arc I had high hopes for. They can't all be winners! If you've read any of these, let me know what you thought... I'd love to hear.

    

THE CLOVER CHAPEL (JAMISON VALLEY #2) | 4 STARS
by Devney Perry

After loving Perry’s The Coppersmith Farmhouse, I was excited to return to the small town of Prescott, Montana. Nick and Emmy shared one wild night in Vegas which ended with a spontaneous wedding. But the next morning Nick was gone, leaving Emmy hurt and confused over what had happened and why he left. Flash forward nine years and Emmy, who has come to Prescott for a fresh star, runs into none other than Nick. While the story depended on the reader believing in Nick and Emmy’s near instant connection and the fact that they still carried a torch for each other almost a decade late, I was more than willing to roll with it. Perry managed to have me so firmly onboard the Nick & Emmy love train that even Nick’s insistence that she was his wife (which, technically she still was) had me swooning instead of rolling my eyes. When drama arrived at their doorstep I was so invested that I was turning the pages as fast as I could. While I didn’t love this one quite as much as the first book, I was still all-in for Nick and Emmy’s story. (The Clover Chapel is the second book in the Jamison Valley series but can easily be read as a standalone.)

FIGHT FOR ME (THE ARROWOOD BROTHERS #2) | 3.75 STARS
by Corinne Michaels

Come Back For Me, the first book in the Arrowood Brothers series, had the perfect set-up for Declan and Sydney’s story so I was excited to learn their background and watch how they reconnected. Declan and Sydney had been Declan+Sydney since they were kids. The best friends/lovers were a perfect match – until Declan abruptly broke things off and walked away. Years later, forced to return to his childhood home for several months, Declan had to face the fallout from his actions. There were times when I wanted to throttle both characters for keeping secrets, and their back and forth started to feel a little repetitive, but in true Michaels fashion, she made me care. And when the real emotional scenes came, I was right there, dabbing my eyes and forgetting all about wanting to throttle anyone, and just wishing for a happy ending. (While it’s not necessary to read Come Back For Me first, the brothers’ background is explained a lot more in that one and would probably help make sense of Declan’s decisions and actions.)

PERFECT LOVE STORY | 3.5 STARS 
by Natasha Madison

Hailey seems to have the perfect life – until her husband is killed in an accident and she learns that he wasn’t only her husband. He had another wife - and children. Devastated, she retreated to a beachside home to lick her wounds. Jensen (totally digging that name) was married to his high school sweetheart and thought his whole life was mapped out until his wife walked out on him and their daughter. When a new woman moves into the house he built for his ex it raises his hackles and the sparks fly. There’s no other way to say it: Jensen was a total dick at the beginning of the book. The way he treated Hailey was pretty atrocious and uncalled for. To Hailey’s credit, she didn’t just take it and she let him know what she thought of him. Eventually they did find common ground in their shared losses/betrayals and a relationship grew from there. Their story was mostly drama-free which I appreciated, but I also didn’t feel much of a connection with either character or their relationship. Even so, I appreciated their openness and honesty with each other and the ease they had together. Jensen’s daughter was totally cute and it was heartwarming to see the bond grow between her and Hailey.   

    

THE PLAYER | 3 STARS 
by Claire Contreras

The Player was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Warren was an international soccer star at the top of his game and Camila was a mere mortal who lived in NYC and worked for a non-profit. A chance meeting had Warren desperate to get in her pants during the two weeks he’s in NYC. So yeah, that felt like the entire premise for at least the first half of the book. Eventually they started spending time together and some real feelings started to develop but it took so long for there to be anything substantial to their relationship that it was hard to feel invested. As much as I liked Warren, Camila was hard to take. She had a total bias against anyone with money and was hung up on social class/standing. It was maybe a bit understandable considering her past but she took it to an extreme. And she played hard to get for so long I couldn’t understand why Warren persisted. When a secret was revealed late in the story, Camila overreacted and used it as an excuse to push Warren away (even her sister tried to reason with her), and Warren’s grand gesture, while huge, felt undeserved and as if he was the only one compromising. As much as I liked Warren and his story, Camila wasn’t particularly likable and that made it hard to pull for her.

THE MALL | 2.5 STARS 
by Megan McCafferty

I had such high hopes. I mean, it’s a book set in 1991 and is practically an ode to late 80’s/early 90’s pop culture (90210, Designer Imposter perfumes, Wilson Phillips and Color Me Badd). And it’s Megan McCafferty, the creator of the Jessica Darling series (which, by the way, never got the attention it deserved). But I’m sad to say, The Mall just didn’t do it for me. Main character Cassie was quite a pill. Cassie was wallowing in post break-up status and absolutely oblivious to anything or anyone around her. She was super judgey about everyone she encountered and behaved like a total brat with her parents. So there was that. It’s the summer between high school graduation and college and Cassie was meant to be spending it working with her longtime boyfriend at America’s Best Cookie. Instead, he cheats on her, they break up, and she gets fired (I never did understand why she got fired.) She finds a job at another mall shop, working with her former bff, and gets pulled into a bizarre scavenger hunt while continuing to be whiny and self-indulgent. By the end it seemed like she supposedly learned a lesson from the other mall-ites she encountered which felt too after-school-special for me. I’m bumping this one up by a half-star sheerly for the nostalgia factor of all the 90’s references. (Side note: The 90’s setting, while fun, seemed like an odd choice considering that anyone old enough to actually remember and appreciate the references is much older than the intended YA audience.)

Have you read any of these books?