Book Review: Friends Like Us by Sarah Mackenzie

Friends Like Us (Cranberry Cove #2) by Sarah Mackenzie

Published: January 26th, 2021

Publisher: Forever

Genre: Romantic women’s fiction

Heat level: 🔥

# of pages: 272

My rating: 4.5 stars

Acquired this book: From the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for honest consideration

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Bree Rhodes and Jill Kelly have been best friends since kindergarten. When Bree survives a cancer scare, the knitting shop assistant takes it as a sign to step out of her comfort zone...or at least take a few tentative tiptoes. But in no time she's in over her head with a hot architect, a new puppy and a shot at buying her dream inn. And the harder she tries to stay afloat in her new normal, the harder it is to hold onto her friendship with Jill who seems to be ebbing away.

While her best friend is living her best life, art boutique owner, Jill, is simply trying to live. Still struggling after a freak motorcycle accident took the life of her husband, Jill doesn't know how to start over—or if she even wants to. Life isn't easy as a young widow, especially when she's hiding a painful secret. But when she learns that the fairytale Maine cottage she'd once dreamed of buying with her husband is on the market, she has to decide whether she's ready to let go of the past and to write a new chapter. But the only way to do really heal is by revealing to Bree a truth that will either destroy their friendship forever or bring them closer together.

 

While I love romance, I have a special fondness for books about friends. Bonus points if those friends have known each other forever, like Bree and Jill, because my own bestie and I have known each other since the first grade. I enjoyed Sarah Mackenzie’s 2019 debut, Forever Friends, but I LOVED Friends Like Us. It was realistic, funny, hopeful, and heartwarming.

After a cancer scare, Bree makes an anti-bucket list: things that will push her outside her small life and her comfort zone and help her truly live. Her first task seems simple but it sets a whole new life into motion. Jill is grieving the loss of her husband, along with the life she knew and the life they’d planned together. She has a successful business, but the rest of her life is a mess; she’s stuck and doesn’t know how to move on or even if she wants to. With each other’s love and support, both women learn to take chances, open their hearts to love (and not just romantic love), and see the possibilities life has to offer.

Friends Like Us spoke to me in so many ways. I loved how Bree and Jill leaned on each other and were strong for each other, but also learned to be strong for themselves. I loved seeing them both open themselves up, and I cheered them on throughout the story. I enjoyed the romance storyline in this one more than the first book, I think because I relate to Bree much more than I did to Sadie or Renee. I also appreciated that Jill’s story didn’t include a front-and-centre romance because she was still deep in grief and figuring things out. I can’t say much more without the risk of spoilers, but I was pleased and satisfied with how the romance storylines progressed. I also enjoyed seeing the characters from the first book and ‘catching up’ with them and seeing them happy. I hope there’ll be more books in this series because I’d love to see Essie and Ashley get their chances at happily ever after.

Friends Like Us is going to be one of those books I recommend often. Love books about friendship? Self-discovery? Taking chances? Finding love in unexpected places? This is the book for you. Also, if you love Jill Shalvis’s Wildstone series (which I discovered last year and continue to love this year with the newest installment), Friends Like Us has a similar vibe - an emphasis on character growth with a swoony side of romance.

Read my review of Forever Friends by Sarah Mackenzie

Have you read Friends Like Us? What are some of your favourite books that feature close friendships? 

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Blog Tour Review & Giveaway: The Forever Girl by Jill Shalvis

The Forever Girl (Wildstone #6) by Jill Shalvis

Published: January 12th, 2021

Publisher: William Morrow Books

Tropes: Found family, forced proximity, friends to lovers

Heat level: 🔥🔥

# of pages: 400

My rating: 4.5 stars

Acquired this book: From the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for honest consideration

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When Maze returns to Wildstone for the wedding of her estranged bff and the sister of her heart, it’s also a reunion of a once ragtag team of teenagers who had only each other until a tragedy tore them apart and scattered them wide.

Now as adults together again in the lake house, there are secrets and resentments mixed up in all the amazing childhood memories. Unexpectedly, they instantly fall back into their roles: Maze their reckless leader, Cat the den mother, Heather the beloved baby sister, and Walker, a man of mystery. 

Life has changed all four of them in immeasurable ways. Maze and Cat must decide if they can rebuild their friendship, and Maze discovers her long-held attraction to Walker hasn’t faded with the years but has only grown stronger.

  

The Forever Girl is the third Wildstone book I’ve read; if I could describe this standalone series with one phrase it’d be “imperfect people finding their perfect match”. I love how Shalvis writes deeply flawed and often emotionally scarred characters who are completely relatable and three-dimensional, and she has them finding love - the love of family, the love of friends, and the love of a partner. The Forever Girl was no different and, as my first read of 2021, it set the bar high for the rest of the year.

Stories about strong bonds, deep friendships, and family - whether blood family or found family - are among my favourites, and Shalvis does those things so well. Maze, Caitlin, Walker, and Heather were brought together in their youth as foster children in Caitlin’s family. They each had their own emotional baggage and trauma to deal with, but they found love and stability with the Walshes until tragedy tore them apart and scattered them. Now as adults, they’re reuniting for Caitlin’s wedding and they have a lot to overcome - past hurts, mistakes, and misunderstandings, along with secrets, resentments, and guilt. Throw in the issues each of them is currently dealing with as adults who have grown and changed, and there’s a lot of tension and emotion bubbling in the lake house.

This story had so much heart. The bonds between these characters ran deep, and yet they had so many things to overcome. There were some heavy themes - grief, mental health, childhood trauma - but it was all handled so well and was balanced by humour and moments of levity and hope. I loved the family and friendship dynamics, as well as the romantic ones. I laughed and teared up while reading - sometimes both at once. I was completely emotionally invested from beginning to end.

Full of heart and humour, The Forever Girl is a beautiful story about chosen family, bonds that last forever, forgiveness, and following your heart. I can’t wait for more Wildstone books.

Read my review of Almost Just Friends

Read my review of The Summer Deal

The publisher has generously allowed me to offer a print copy of The Forever Girl to one lucky US winner!

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New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold and visit her website, www.jillshalvis.com, for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures. Follow Jill on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Have you read The Forever Girl or any of the other books in the Wildstone series? What are some of your favourite books about family bonds? 

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One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London: A Bitter Disappointment

One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London
Published: July 7th, 2020
Publisher: Dial Press
Tropes: Reality TV
Heat level: 🔥🔥
My rating: 2.5 stars
# of pages: 432
Acquired this book: From the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for honest consideration
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Bea Schumacher is a devastatingly stylish plus-size fashion blogger who has amazing friends, a devoted family, legions of Insta followers--and a massively broken heart. Like the rest of America, Bea indulges in her weekly obsession: the hit reality show Main Squeeze. The fantasy dates! The kiss-off rejections! The surprising amount of guys named Chad! But Bea is sick and tired of the lack of body diversity on the show. Since when is being a size zero a prerequisite for getting engaged on television?

Just when Bea has sworn off dating altogether, she gets an intriguing call: Main Squeeze wants her to be its next star, surrounded by men vying for her affections. Bea agrees, on one condition--under no circumstances will she actually fall in love. She's in this to supercharge her career, subvert harmful anti-fat beauty standards, inspire women across America, and get a free hot air balloon ride. That's it.

But when the cameras start rolling, Bea realizes things are more complicated than she anticipated. She's in a whirlwind of sumptuous couture, Internet culture wars, sexy suitors, and an opportunity (or two, or five) to find messy, real-life love in the midst of a made-for-TV fairy tale. In this joyful, razor-sharp debut, Bea has to decide whether it might just be worth trusting these men--and herself--for a chance to live happily ever after.

I had high hopes for One to Watch - a fat Instagram-famous fashionista going on a reality dating show to find love? Sign me up! I was expecting something cute, funny, empowering, romantic, and feel-good. What I actually got was slammed in the face with a book full of fatphobia, making One to Watch incredibly difficult to read and often downright depressing.

I love when I can relate to a character, whether it’s because they’re fat or deal with mental illness or they’re nerdy or love to travel or whatever. If I can connect to a character because of common life experiences or interests, it makes it that much easier to love a book. In the case of One to Watch, my connection to Bea stirred up a lot of painful emotions. See, like Bea, I’m fat. I’ve always been fat. I’ve been made fun of, I’ve been bullied, I’ve been ridiculed, I’ve been judged. And like Bea, I’ve worried that no one will ever see past my size and love me for me. After so many rejections, both big and small, it becomes impossible to fathom that anyone would ever find you desirable or love you or be in a relationship with you. I’ve felt invisible for so long that it’s become a shield, and I saw that in Bea - her suspicion and mistrust and defensiveness around people, especially guys.

While on the one hand it was nice to see myself in Bea and to see the struggles many fat people face talked about with brutal honesty (emphasis on the 'brutal'), it was also too much at times. Bea couldn’t seem to catch a break. For most of the book, it seemed like her fears about how she was perceived and would never find love were completely founded. People treated her like shit. They judged and ridiculed her. So much of the book was Bea being relentlessly humiliated by fatphobic assholes and questioning her self-worth. At times it felt overwhelming seeing all my own fears and insecurities play out right before my eyes. 

All of this isn’t to say I didn’t like Bea, because I did. I could see myself being friends with her and I’d definitely love to get some fashion tips from her! I appreciated how strong and smart and real she was. The reality TV aspect of the book was interesting; I used to be obsessed with The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, so I enjoyed reading about the fictionalized version of a show like that with all its ups and downs, the drama, and the dream dates. I didn’t connect to any of the guys, though, and didn’t think any of them were really right for Bea. With the premise of the book being a reality dating show, the guys’ motivations weren’t clear (were they there for fame? Did they want to use the show to advance their own careers? Did they want to get a spot on one of the franchise’s spin-off shows?) and we didn’t get to know any of them well enough to know whether they suited Bea long term. Her constant doubts about them didn’t help either because I found myself mistrustful of every single one of them, waiting for the moment when she would be humiliated yet again...which always, always happened.

Overall, this book was a miss for me. There were too few triumphs for Bea after so much pain, heartache, and humiliation. I was hoping for a book that would leave me feeling hopeful and happy, not depressed and disappointed. I would have loved to see Bea have more things work out in her favour, more circumstances where she was the winner instead of the loser. She was obviously a confident, self-assured woman, but we got to see very little of that because she was constantly put in crappy situations that often left her feeling like the butt of a bad joke.

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*Please note I'm an Amazon affiliate, and some of the links in this review are affiliate links. All income made through affiliate sales goes directly back into maintaining Ramblings of a Daydreamer. Thank you for your support!

Summer at the Highland Coral Beach by Kiley Dunbar: A Perfect Escape From Reality

Summer at the Highland Coral Beach by Kiley Dunbar
Published: March 27th, 2020
Publisher: Hera Books
Genre: Contemporary romance
# of pages: 300
My rating: 4 stars
Acquired this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for honest consideration
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Beatrice Halliday needs a break from life. Booking a trip to the Highlands on a whim, Beatrice hopes learning Gaelic in a beautiful Scottish village might help her heal her grief after losing her baby, her husband and her much loved job in a space of months.

But Port Willow Bay isn’t exactly as the website promised. Instead of learning a new language, she’s booked in to learn the ancient skill of willow weaving, her hotel room is Princess and the Pea themed (with a stack of mattresses for her bed!) and worse still, her tutor is Atholl Fergusson, grumpy landlord of the hotel where Beatrice is staying – and she’s the only one doing the course.

But as Beatrice finds herself falling in love with Port Willow Bay and its people, and as she discovers the kind heart beneath Atholl’s stony exterior, can she really leave?

Scotland has been at the top of my travel wishlist for ages, so on the day of the cover reveal for Summer at the Highland Coral Beach, my first thought - before even seeing the cover or reading the synopsis - was ‘you had me at Scotland’. Then I saw the gorgeous cover and I knew I had to read this book. After reading Kiley’s sophomore novel, Christmas at Frozen Falls, I knew she had a knack for transporting the reader to the setting of the book, and Summer at the Highland Coral Beach was no different. I felt like I made the journey with Beatrice to Port Willow Bay with its coral beach, turquoise waters, and the charming Princess and the Pea Inn.

I really liked Beatrice. She’d been dealt a difficult hand between losing her mum, losing her job, a rocky patch in her marriage, finally getting pregnant and then losing the baby, and then her husband leaving her when he couldn’t handle how she was dealing with her grief. Desperately needing an escape, she booked a holiday to the Highlands on a whim. Port Willow Bay was beautiful, but the Princess and the Pea Inn didn’t exactly live up to what its website promised. Beatrice quickly realized her whim wasn’t the smartest idea and she decided to return home, but circumstances kept her in Port Willow, where she began falling in love with the inn, the charming town, and its people...especially one person in particular, a hot Scot named Atholl.

While this book packed an emotional punch with its talk of grief and loss, it was also funny, charming, and romantic. The characters were wonderfully quirky and the setting was gorgeous (my desire to visit the Highlands has increased exponentially). I enjoyed watching Beatrice’s growth and seeing her figure out you can’t outrun your problems - they go with you wherever you go and stay with you until you confront them head on. She learned how to begin the healing process after loss, and how to move on while still honouring the ones you loved and lost. I also really appreciated that Beatrice was older than your typical romance heroine (just about to turn 40).

Sweet, funny, and emotional, Summer at the Highland Coral Beach was the perfect escape.

Have you read Summer at the Highland Coral Beach? What's a setting you always love reading about? Have you read any books lately that have felt like wonderful escapes from reality?

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*Please note I'm an Amazon affiliate, and some of the links in this review are affiliate links. All income made through affiliate sales goes directly back into maintaining Ramblings of a Daydreamer. Thank you for your support!  

Postscript by Cecelia Ahern: Heartbreaking, Insightful, and Healing

Postscript (PS I Love You #2) by Cecelia Ahern
Published: February 11th, 2020
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Genre: Contemporary women’s fiction
# of pages: 300
My rating: 5 stars
Acquired this book: From the publisher in exchange for honest consideration
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Seven years after her husband's death - six since she read his final letter - Holly Kennedy has moved on with her life. When Holly's sister asks her to tell the story of the "PS, I Love You" letters on her podcast - to revisit the messages Gerry wrote before his death to read after his passing - she does so reluctantly, not wanting to reopen old wounds.

But after the episode airs, people start reaching out to Holly, and they all have one thing in common: they're terminally ill and want to leave their own missives behind for loved ones. Suddenly, Holly finds herself drawn back into a world she's worked tirelessly to leave behind - but one that leads her on another incredible, life-affirming journey.

I was equal parts excited and wary when I heard Cecelia Ahern was releasing a sequel to PS I Love You. I read and loved PS I Love You many, many years ago, and I’m a huge fan of the movie. There was a time when I was obsessed with Cecelia’s books and devoured all of them, but in recent years I haven’t been as much of a fan. In fact, I DNF’d the last two books of hers I attempted to read, which broke my heart. That fact added to my wariness about Postscript.

But...Postscript was everything I didn’t know I needed for so many reasons. I reread PS I Love You right before going into Postscript because it’s been well over a decade since the first time I read it. I’m glad I did because I hadn’t remembered how vastly different it was from the movie, so it was good to be reminded of Holly and Gerry’s story as Cecelia herself told it.

Postscript picks up seven years after Gerry’s death. Holly is doing well; she’s moved on, she’s found love, she has strong friendships and a job she enjoys, and while she still grieves for Gerry, it’s not as all-consuming as it was. She’s changed and grown in many ways, and she knows a lot of that was because of Gerry’s death and the upheaval it caused in her life. It was also partly because of his letters and how he helped her through that first year after his death. After doing a podcast with her sister about grief and Gerry’s letters, Holly is contacted by a group who were inspired by her story. The PS I Love You Club is a motley crew of people with one thing in common: they’re all terminally ill. Holly is hesitant to help them; she doesn’t want to get sucked into the past, she doesn’t want to fall back into the deep, dark pit of grief, she doesn’t want to relive her worst days, even if it means helping these people. But they win her over, despite her reluctance and the warnings from her family and friends, and she embarks on a surprising, heartbreaking, life-affirming journey filled with bittersweet lessons about life, love, and death. 

This book broke my heart, but it also healed it. I’ve known grief for most of my life; my dad died at the age of 49 when I was just ten. In the following years, I lost my Poppy, various aunts and uncles, people I went to school with, and the hardest death of them all eight years ago, my beloved Grama. Even after all this time, I grieve for her as if she had just died. She lived a long, full life, unlike my dad and unlike many of the people I know who were taken too soon, but losing her was like losing a part of me. Her death left a hole in my heart that will never be filled or healed. Last year was especially difficult for a variety of reasons, which I won’t get into, but you can read about here if you’re interested. Because of that, this book felt very timely. I cried within the first few pages and I cried a lot more during the course of the book, including a section that made me full-on sob. It was incredibly thought-provoking in so many ways, and made me think about life and death and grief. Grief is different for everyone, but this book truly made me feel seen in the way grief was described - the actual feeling of it, the living with it, the questions you have that will never be answered. 

One of the things I appreciated most about this book was that Gerry’s death didn’t magically transform Holly into a different person. She was definitely a different person than she was when he died, but it was a natural progression, the way all of us change over time. She didn’t suddenly have it all together after he died and while his letters helped her learn to move on, she still struggled. Basically, she was a bit of a hot mess before his death and she was still a bit of a hot mess, but that made her so relatable and I loved her for that. I loved that no matter what happened, she was able to pick herself up, dust herself off, and keep going, even when it was painful and even when she was unsure what she was doing.

I feel like I could talk about Postscript forever because it touched me so deeply. I’ve thought about it a lot since finishing it, and I know I’ll continue to think about it for a long time to come. I also know I’ll be recommending this book a lot. While Postscript has its heartbreaking moments, it’s also full of heart, hope, and humour. It’s beautifully written and insightful. I loved Holly’s journey and I felt like I was right there by her side, laughing with her, crying with her, sympathizing with her, and rooting her on.

Have you read Postscript? How about PS I Love You? What's the last book that made you cry?

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*Please note I'm an Amazon affiliate, and some of the links in this review are affiliate links. All income made through affiliate sales goes directly back into maintaining Ramblings of a Daydreamer. Thank you for your support!  

Forever Friends by Sarah Mackenzie: A Look at Friendship and the Struggles and Triumphs of Life

Forever Friends by Sarah Mackenzie
Published: December 10th, 2019
Publisher: Forever
Genre: Women’s fiction
Tropes/themes: Friendship, divorce, motherhood, small town
Heat level: Mostly sweet with a touch of heat
# of pages: 320
My rating: 3.5 stars
Acquired this book: From the publisher in exchange for honest consideration
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Single mom Renee Rhodes seems like a woman who has it all together -- perfect house, perfect kid, perfect yard. But now that her daughter is away at college, she doesn't know what to do next. Without weekly PTA meetings and after-school chauffeur duty, Renee isn't sure who she is anymore. What she is sure of is that she probably shouldn't be crushing on her new boss, who couldn't possibly be interested in a middle-aged mom....

Sadie Landry is drowning in the stay-at-home mom life. With a toddler running wild, a husband who is growing more distant by the day, and a mother-in-law who has a comment on every-little-thing, Sadie is one mommy-and-me class away from losing it. When she learns that she is pregnant again, Sadie knows that something has to change for the sake of her family -- and her sanity.

After a birthday party bake-a-thon nearly turns into a three-alarm fire, Renee comes to her neighbor Sadie's rescue with comfort, competence, and a killer pie recipe. With their unlikely friendship and a newly hatched plan to open a bakery, can Sadie and Renee finally have the lives they've always dreamed of?

Forever Friends is a really lovely story. I don’t read much women’s fiction these days (I’m drawn more to romance), but this book was sweet, funny, entertaining, and had great characters...plus more romance than I expected, which didn’t hurt!

I loved how this book featured two women with very different life experiences and at different points in their lives, and showed how despite the obvious differences, they were actually very similar. Sadie is a young stay-at-home mom to two-year-old Lincoln. She was a career woman who loved her job, but gave it up when she became a mom. Her husband works a lot, is out of town most of the time, and she’s completely overwhelmed. She feels like a bad mother because she can’t seem to get it together, no matter how hard she tries, plus she’s fairly isolated with no friends or family in Cranberry Cove and her husband always away. Renee is in her forties and suffering a case of empty nest syndrome. Her daughter, who's also her best friend, has gone away to college, and despite having a job she enjoys, she’s lonely and a bit aimless. Her husband left her over a decade ago and she hasn’t made much effort to date or move on in any way other than concentrating on being the best mom she can be. 

These characters were so easy to sympathize with. I’m about halfway between them agewise, and I’m not a mother, but I could understand and empathize with both of their struggles. At times I felt like a bit too much was being piled on, but at the same time, it was a realistic portrayal of real life, which I could appreciate. Life is messy and complicated, and this book captured that well. I really enjoyed all the different aspects of life we saw too: new motherhood, having a grown child, navigating marriage, finding it hard to move on after divorce, feeling isolated and lonely, sisterhood, friendship, finding love again when you think you never will, and having the courage to go after what you want. I also really enjoyed all the pie talk and ended up craving pie through most of this book!

Overall, Forever Friends was a heartfelt and heartwarming story. I loved Sadie and Renee, and their friendship is now one of my favourite bookish friendships. I’m excited to return to Cranberry Cove later this year and read more about Bree, Renee’s sister, and hopefully see more of Sadie and Renee.

Have you read Forever Friends? What are some of your favourite books that have strong elements of friendship?

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*Please note I'm an Amazon affiliate, and some of the links in this review are affiliate links. All income made through affiliate sales goes directly back into maintaining Ramblings of a Daydreamer. Thank you for your support!