“Somerset Lake is the perfect place for Trisha Langly and her son to start over. As the new manager for the Somerset Cottages, Trisha is instantly charmed by the property’s elderly residents and her firecracker of a new boss, Vi Fletcher. But Trisha is less enchanted by Vi’s protective grandson Jake. No matter how tempting she finds the handsome lawyer, Trisha knows that if Jake discovers the truth about her past, she’ll lose the new life she’s worked so hard to build. Jake Fletcher left Somerset Lake after a tragic loss, but he’s returning for the summer to care for his beloved grandmother, hoping Vi will sell the run-down cottages and finally slow down. There’s just one problem: Trisha, Vi’s new employee. She’s smart, beautiful, and kind, but Jake’s job is to protect his grandmother’s interests, and his gut is telling him Trisha’s hiding something that could jeopardize Vi’s future. However, as they spend summer days renovating the property and bonding over their love for the town, Jake realizes that Trisha is a risk worth taking—if only she can trust him with her secrets...and her heart.” (Description of The Summer Cottage by Annie Rains taken from Hachette Book Group’s website). The Summer Cottage by Annie Rains is a smalltown romance perfect for fans of Robyn Carr, Karen Kingsbury, Jill Shalvis, and RaeAnne Thayne. I would also highly recommend The Summer Cottage to fans of Hallmark romance movies. The Summer Cottage deals with themes such as parenting, family and friendship, divorce and heartbreak, love and loss, desire to escape, past versus present, crime, truth and lies, and change versus tradition. Some potential trigger warnings include strokes, anaphylaxis allergies, bullying, embezzlement, and incarceration. The moral of this story is that home is where the heart is. Firstly, I liked how The Summer Cottage was a short, sweet, and quick read (it was just under 300 pages). Being a huge fan of the Virgin River books and film series, I enjoyed how Trisha’s character and storyline in The Summer Cottage was reminiscent of Paige’s character and storyline in Virgin River; they’re both single mothers of a young son who move to a smalltown while attempting to escape their pasts. In addition to loving the beautiful lakeside cottage setting, I also enjoyed the inclusion of the enemies to lovers and forced proximity tropes. Lastly, I appreciated that a preview of book 2 in the Somerset Lake series (The Christmas Village) and a bonus story from Annie Rains’ Sweetwater Springs series (Kiss Me in Sweetwater Springs) was included at the end of (this edition of) The Summer Cottage.
Overall, The Summer Cottage was a short and sweet summer read that I would highly recommend to fans of Hallmark movies and the Virgin River series. If you enjoyed The Summer Cottage by Annie Rains, make sure you check out book 3 in the Somerset Lake series, The True Love Bookshop, when it comes out on July 5th!
Links: Click HERE to add The Summer Cottage to your "Goodreads" TBR!
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“Alex Turner is never The One—but always the last one an ex dates before finding love—and now she’s determined to find out why in this hilarious new rom-com. Single divorce attorney Alex Turner is watching reality TV when she sees her latest ex’s new fiancée picking out her wedding dress. Yet again, the guy she dumped went on to marry (or at least seriously commit to) the next person he dates after her. Fed up with being the precursor to happily ever after, she decides to interview all her exes to find out why—starting with her first boyfriend. Up-and-coming chef Will Harkness mixes with Alex like oil and vinegar, but forced proximity growing up means their lives are forever entwined. When Will learns Alex and her friends are going on a wild romp through Los Angeles to reconnect with her ex-boyfriends, he decides to tag along. If he can discover what her exes did wrong, he can make sure he doesn’t make the same mistake with Alex. On this nonstop journey through the streets of LA, Alex realizes the answer to her question might be the man riding shotgun…” (Summary courtesy of Berkley and Penguin Random House). Now, onto my review... Thank You, Next is a second chance rom com perfect for fans of Set On You by Amy Lea, Count Your Lucky Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur, People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry, The Singles Table by Sara Desai, and Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter. Thank You, Next deals with topics like biological and found family, absentee parents, relationships and divorce, love and heartbreak, trust, and difficulty moving on from the past. In my opinion, like the message in Ariana Grande’s song “Thank U, Next”, the moral of Thank You, Next is that everything happens for a reason and the end of a romantic relationship isn’t necessarily a “failure”; furthermore, you should appreciate how you’ve positively grown as a person because of your past romantic relationships. Overall, Thank You, Next was a good read but I felt like it didn’t live up to my high expectations; I was really excited about this book because of the colourful cover, fun title, and funny description but I was disappointed that the plot wasn’t super engaging. Furthermore, I was expecting lots of hilarious shenanigans with Alex’s exes but instead, I found that Alex’s visits with her exes were awkward and embarrassing (there’s even a visit involving a painful cavity filling and visit with a cringe-worthy, impromptu comedy roast). Next, I know that they weren’t biologically related, but I found it disturbing that the main love interests were (temporarily) related by marriage (Will’s father was married to Alex’s grandmother – which means that Will was Alex’s step-uncle). I also found it odd that there was so much divorce in this story, and I felt like all the talk of divorce kind of took away from the romance; almost all the main characters had been divorced (including one of the love interests) and Alex was a divorce lawyer who had a negative view of marriage.
Despite being different than what I expected, I still enjoyed Thank You, Next and would recommend it to readers who enjoy unique rom coms with lots of ex-boyfriend drama! Are you planning on picking up a copy of Thank You, Next? Links: Click HERE to add Thank You, Next to you "Goodreads" TBR! Continue reading for an excerpt of Thank You, Next by Andie J. Christopher curtesy of Berkley Publishing, Penguin Random House, and Andie J. Christopher… Excerpt of Thank You, Next by Andie J. Christopher: As Alex sat down with her Big Gulp–sized glass of rosé, she was prepared to watch a twenty-one-year-old who thought a thirty-five-year-old who didn’t have bed frame was her soul mate. What she was not prepared for was to see a woman who looked eerily like Alex waxing poetic about Alex’s most recent ex-boyfriend. She’d met Jason speaking on a Black Law Students Association panel at UCLA Law School, featuring four Black law partners under forty. When she’d walked in and seen all six foot four of Jason, she’d been glad she hadn’t found an excuse to cancel her appearance. It wasn’t that she hated giving back, but she always felt exhausted after socializing with new people. She’d planned to sneak out in the first ten minutes of the happy hour after the panel when Jason brought her over a glass of boxed wine. He’d smiled at her, and the rest of the room had fallen away. They’d talked for the whole cocktail hour and then he’d taken her out to dinner. It had been so long since she’d liked someone that she’d been a little helpless to resist him at first. Of course that had changed later on, but she’d been intoxicated with Jason that first night. Seeing Jason on a show about weddings was doubly shocking because Jason had told Alex in no uncertain terms—multiple times during the months they’d dated—that he didn’t believe in marriage. That was why Alex had started dating him in the first place. She would never have to wonder whether she’d won the lottery or thrown away her time and money for a dream that only came true for one in a hundred million. There was no danger that she’d end up hog-tied in a Pnina Tornai dress, later trying to furtively poop in the locker room before her third SoulCycle class of the day because a man who hadn’t pushed a watermelon out of his vagina thought she was too fat a month after doing so. She’d thought they were on the same page. But Jason had apparently lied to her about his aversion to marriage. As Alex watched the photo montage of his relationship history with this other woman, she started to feel sick. At some point, she put down her wine and leaned toward the television. She clasped her hands together so hard that the joints in her knuckles ached. It was better than what she really wanted to do—throw something at the TV. She didn’t even know why. They’d had a nice few months together, but she hadn’t been in love with Jason. They were compatible—in bed and out—but she hadn’t thought about him when he wasn’t around. Her feelings for Jason were warm and pleasant, but there hadn’t been any passion between them. They’d parted ways amicably, and she’d thought they would both sail off into another chapter of serial monogamy. Still, she seethed as she watched this woman pick out a dress to marry a man who’d apparently changed his life plans in the nine months since he’d dumped Alex. She didn’t know why, but thinking about him moving on with this woman formed a sinkhole in her chest. Instead of doing anything about it, like changing the channel, Alex sipped her pink wine and really looked at the woman who was going to marry Jason—her handsome, financially stable, erudite ex-boyfriend who’d told her that he’d rather put his balls in a panini press every morning than spend the rest of his life with one person. And as the woman on the screen picked out a dress that was so simple and classic that it made Alex’s chest ache, she realized that Jason had only had an aversion to marriage because he couldn’t countenance the prospect of marriage with Alex. After the episode ended on a frame of Jason’s fiancée crying as her mother gave her a blank check to purchase the dress she chose, Alex turned the sound down and opened up the Facebook app on her phone. She usually stayed off it because it was for boomers and conspiracy theorists, but she hadn’t given up her account because her sister occasionally posted pictures of her nieces on there. They lived a thousand miles away, and she missed them. Hanging out with them on Christmas gave her a vague understanding of why her sister had volunteered to have her vagina ripped open in order to bring them into the world. But she wasn’t descending into the bowels of social media at ten o’clock on a Friday night to admire the fruits of her sister’s loins. She was on a mission, a journey, and a quest. Excerpted from Thank You, Next by Andie J. Christopher, Copyright © 2022 by Andie J. Christopher. Excerpt reproduced with permission of Berkley and Penguin Random House, all rights reserved.
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