Review: The Summer Book Club

The Summer Book Club by Susan Mallery
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

The Summer Book Club follows three women navigating life after losing love and working to keep avoiding it but getting their second chances anyway. Friends since childhood, Laurel and Paris, are in their late thirties, divorced, and trying to keep their businesses running and successful, while late twenties newcomer from the East Coast, Cassie, is fighting being thrown out of the nest for the first time. This leaned a little more towards women's fiction but the romance interests make their appearances around the 25% mark (a little later for Cassie) and flutter in and out enough to give a secondary tag of romance. This was all closed door scenes, they passionately kiss but then are “waking” up in bed after having their world rocked ten/twenty minutes later. I also thought there was an underlying tone of conservative intimacy, the “save it for someone special” idealism that felt a little icky to me but your mileage may vary. The book club aspect wasn't really included, worked to get Cassie in the group and the men later join but it really only added some fun little shout-outs to books of yore, MacKenzie's Mountain by Linda Howard; Knight of Shining Armour by Jude Deveraux; The Endearment by LaVyrle Spencer; and Night into Day by Sandra Canfield.

No more guys, she vowed. No more love. No more being stupid. 

Laurel has been divorced for a year after her husband drained their bank accounts and left to start a rafting company in Jamaica. She's been stressed to say the least as she tries to keep her thrifting business, searching for low priced items at Goodwill, estate sales, etc. to up-sale on Ebay, and raise her two pre-teen daughters. She's called into the school where a teacher tells her that her oldest daughter has been saying man hating comments and Laurel realizes that her bitterness has bled over into her daughter and it's time to find some positive male role models for her girls. With some serendipitous help, she keeps running into a sound engineer named Colton and dumps her story on him and he agrees to be “just” friends with her. They, oops, have some of that not shown bedroom mind-blowing but it's back to “just” friends, until Colton's parents are visiting and then a fake-dating situationship happens. 

This was probably the most emotional story, but it wasn't to do with the romance, one of Laurel's daughters is hurt and angry about their father abandoning them and them being extremely flaky while the younger daughter loves him and begs and cries for any crumbs from him. It was hurtful to see how this kind of dynamic can hurt family members individually and the family unit. 

She wasn’t who she had been. 

Paris' story will probably be the one most people have the hardest connecting with, she's been divorced for a little under ten years after her husband walked out without saying a word to her. Paris grew-up with an abusive mom and carried those learned traits into her marriage, letting her anger control her and was not only emotionally abusive, yelling constantly at her husband, but also physical, throwing things at him and slapping him. It was great that Paris didn't excuse her behavior before she got therapy but the keeping of bringing up scenes where she was physically abusive to her husband did kill a lot of the romance genre feelings trying to come through. Her ex comes back to town to help his mother recover from knee surgery and she learns that his wife and mother to his son died of cancer a year ago. 

I probably could have made an effort to connect with this story more if the ex-husband had shown any strength in being hurt or mad over how Paris treated him during their marriage, but he pretty much shrugs it all off and thinks more about how it was wrong of him to just walk away and not speak to her. He also shows no concern over leaving his son with her to babysit, saying he “trusts” her. Good, great but she was physically abusive with you and even though she says she went to therapy and seems calm in the two/three limited times you've been around her, should you immediately trust her around a child? This is where the focus on women's fiction hurt this story, the ex was pretty much an empty vessel to just be Paris' second chance and without his character depth, the redemption after she dealt with her anger issues did not feel satisfactory. 

Why did she pick loser guys she helped get back on their feet who then left her? 

Cassie's story was the most interesting to me but there was some thrown out there little wildness to it. Her parents died when she was fourteen and even though she had two older siblings, her uncle came and took care of her until she was eighteen. She never got to really deal with her grief and as a consequence, she is always focused on keeping everyone around her happy and keeps her relationships light because she thinks they're going to end anyway. Her siblings see that she is stalling her life to help them out and decide to kick her out and get her to go visit the land in California her uncle left her. Cassie's hurt and doesn't want to go but when she arrives, she gets a job at a bookstore and starts to fall in love with the land and small orchard her uncle left her. 

This story has a, brought up over and over again, insanely handsome archaeologist that is excavating on Cassie's land because a matriarchal society lived there long ago, cave drawings newly discovered by Cassie (brought up once and never again), gold mine find of hidden cognac barrels, and a random old guy neighbor that knows all about orchards and wants nothing in life more than to help Cassie learn how to bring back to life and take care of her newly inherited one. The insanely handsome archaeologist also has some love of first sight but when he asks out Cassie, she laughs and leaves, thinking there's no way he'd actually be interested in her. Anyway, Cassie learns to live life for herself, not be afraid of some impending doom, and accept love from an insanely handsome archaeologist. 

I liked how the women's lives all intertwined with each other but the romances were definitely weaker as the men were all pretty empty vessels who only seemed capable of spouting therapy perfect emotions and relationship conversations.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

It's cold and blustery out, why not escape to the summer? 

Three friends try to escape the chaos of every day by making their book club nothing but heart bursting reads. 

Laurel's hoping her attitude towards men hasn't scarred her daughters, Cassie can't stop falling for man-boys, and Paris still regrets chasing off the man who could have been the one. 

These book club members are hoping their support for one another will help them take the big chances in life that could finally lead them to happiness. 

The Summer Book Club by Susan Mallery purchase link

Chipotle Apricot Chicken recipe

I added 4 chipotles for more kick

Review: The Happiness Plan

The Happiness Plan by Susan Mallery
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

Featuring characters that appeared in the Blackberry Island series, The Happiness Plan follows three friends, Heather, Tori, and Daphne and the three brothers, Campbell, Grant, and Brody that are the connection links in their friend group. Written with all the friends' lives and stories intermingling, this was a good women's fiction beach read that offered emotional highs and lows. Told from only the women's point-of-views, the focus was more on their character make-ups and development, the men were pretty distant and came off as stilted characters to me. From emotional affairs, miscarriages, finding a biological father, and realizing you're in love with your bestfriend, each woman's story offered a different emotional struggle. 

Taking a chance on giving her heart was beyond impossible. There was too much risk and not enough reward. But that didn't mean she didn't miss him. 

Readers of the Blackberry series will remember Heather and the fear of her falling in love with Campbell. When Campbell pushed for more of a solid commitment from Heather, she broke up with him but now that he is seeing someone else, Heather can't get rid of the pang in her heart. Heather probably got more of the page count and had the most to work through. Growing up with an emotionally manipulative mother has made her fear love as she can't trust the other person won't demand and drag her down like her mother tried. She also learns who her biological father is through an ancestry site and tentatively starts to have a relationship with him, his wife, and their two daughters. 

I thought some of the actions by Heather's father and wife felt a bit forced, getting Heather's character to grow in leaps and bounds in regards to learning to accept and give love but at least her character did show and give growth. Her romance with Campbell was probably the most absent, as he's dating someone else the vast majority, but they do get their HEA because of the aforementioned growth by Heather. I felt the most satisfaction when Heather finally took a stand with her horrible mother. 

She was lucky when it came to her friends. Less lucky when it came to men. 

Tori works with Heather and has a “non-couple” friendship with Campbell's brother Grant, an ER doctor. Tori and Grant live across the hall from each other and with him working nights and her working days, they take care of each other's animals. Tori hates change and loves their routine but when the condos get severe water damage, they end up renting a place together, and Tori is confronted with the fact that Grant has decided to start dating. Losing her mother young and distant from the sister that hadn't wanted to take on the responsibility of raising her, their little friend group is all the family she has. Seeing how Heather has been pushed out a little as she's no longer dating Campbell and he's bringing his new girlfriend around, Tori's scared to admit to even herself that she has more than friend feelings with Grant. 

This was probably the lightest story as Tori and Grant didn't have quite as much baggage as the other two couples. We get a good amount of backstory on Tori and her issues of fear of change and not wanting to rock the boat with her great friendship with Grant but Grant was pretty much a couple of pencil marks on a page. Their friendship and little touches obviously pointed to more and when Grant sees Tori in a towel, they're suddenly jumping into bed, but there wasn't really any emotional depth from Grant or to their romance. They get their HEA because Tori admits she's in real love with Grant and he just comes to the realization that yeah, he loves her too. 

How had this all happened? she thought, wiping her cheeks as her breath came in choking sobs. How had they lost their way? 

Daphne and Brody, probably because they are already married, felt the most heavy emotion story. They're newlyweds and Brody has accused Daphne of cheating on him when he discovers a partner at the law firm she works at sent her flowers. Daphne goes to lunch with Miguel and while recognizes he's sexy, she feels that there is nothing wrong with their working friendship. With Daphne's seventy hour work weeks, and Brody's three children from a previous marriage suddenly spending more time at their house, these two have lost time to connect. Daphne's also hurt that when she brought up wanting to try for a baby, Brody told her the timing wasn't good yet, so now she thinks he just using made up anger about Miguel to distract from the fact that he doesn't ever want a baby with her. 

Like with Tori and Grant, we get way more from Daphne and Brody remained more of an outline of a hurt, angry husband. The majority of the time was spent with Daphne not wanting to acknowledge that she was having an emotional affair and therefore keeping Brody from being able to move on. With them growing more distant, Daphne also finds out she's pregnant and is scared Brody won't believe the baby is his. Not really knowing Brody had me kind of aghast at how he treated Daphne. He makes breakfast for himself and the kids but doesn't give Daphne any, when he sees Daphne smiling while reading an email (it had to do with a possible house for them to stay at for vacation) he nastily asks if it's an email from Miguel, and Daphne thinking her husband wouldn't believe her baby was his, had his petty attitude, from who is supposed to be an adult and love this woman, really souring me on him. For how deep some of their issues were, their story wrapped up fairly quickly when Daphne admitted she could see she had an emotional affair and Brody suddenly was fine with everything. 

The three stories intertwined to give fairly deep looks at different emotional issues from all three women, the men characters were kind of left to the side. If you're looking for a beach read with some variety of relationship issues, animals like cute kittens and dogs getting screen time, found family vibes, and headed by three woman trying to work out their love lives, then this would be on to pick up.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

Heading into the weekend with a story about three friends! 

Heather feels content but is shocked to be crushed when her ex gets serious about someone new. This sets her off to contact a stranger who just might be her dad. 

Daphne's husband thinks she's having an emotional affair. When he said he wasn't ready for a baby, it caused a crack in their relationship. These two need to find their way back to each other. 

Tori has a crush on Daphne's brother-in-law and has been trying to hide it. But when her apt. floods, she'll really be put to the test with the dog-loving doctor. 

Three stories of hope, heartache, and love 

The Happiness Plan by Susan Mallery purchase link

Spicy Buffalo Shrimp Bowls with lime ranch recipe