Friday, March 3, 2017

ON SECOND THOUGHT by Kristan Higgins


Harlequin (HQN) Books
January 31st, 2017
9780-373-78925-2
Women’s Fiction, Contemporary
Paperback ARC
Reviewed by Dawn (love2read28@gmail.com)
Obtained by Publisher

3.5 Hearts

 

Ainsley O’Leary is so ready to get married to her long time boyfriend; she is just giddy when she spies an engagement ring he hid away in the bedroom. But she doesn’t anticipate Eric blindsiding her with a breakup that he blogs about. Now the world knows her humiliation and heartbreak. Devestated she turns to her half sister Kate who is also dealing with her own heartbreak.

Kate was always the quiet one, the one who people see and want to be. Poised and self-assured, her life was perfect until her new husband dies, leaving her shattered into pieces. Now both heartbroken women will lean on one another as they try to take in this new reality that is their lives. Sometimes the one person who stands by you is not the one you think will be there. Now Kate and Ainsley will need to learn to put their differences beside, make a new relationship with one another and accept that their family is not as perfect as they thought. Once they do that, their hearts can mend and the possibility of love hovers around the corner…that is if they let themselves reach for it.

ON SECOND THOUGHT is a sweet and emotional story about sisters who have their lives imploded and shattered into a million pieces. This is a story that is at times emotional and heartbreaking as it is uplifting and enjoyable. Ms. Higgins delves into the lives of Ainsley and Kate with a deft stroke of her pen and delivers to her readers a story that is full of heart, emotions and more within the pages of ON SECOND THOUGHT. This was a harder book to wrap myself around after I finished it. It took me a few days to figure out my thoughts about it. The story flows smoothly and the characters fairly brim with life, they almost leap off the pages. There were a few characters that I grew to dislike but others that grew on me to the point where I fell in love with them. I just loved Ainsley. She was vibrant, entertaining and quite a free spirit which transcended the pages perfectly. Eric on the other hand made me see red. I was not to thrilled with him as a character. Kate on the other hand was harder to get to the heart of. She was quite reserved and when her life went to hell in a blink of an eye, well let’s just say things with Kate took me longer to warm to. Kate I wanted to smack a few times for being so stubborn but mostly I felt she needed Ainsley’s cheer and support more than anything. These two on the surface may not have worked but under it all, those connections are what forge the bond that strengthens over time. I was thrilled to see some characters from her last book, If You Only Knew pop in and it was great to see where those characters went after the end of their book.
 
What I didn’t care for was how the characters sometimes felt like they were repeating themselves. Scenes of Kate feeling like she has to go through mourning a certain way got old after awhile, Ainsley trying to deny her feelings for her boss even as she picks up the pieces of her shattered life. Sometimes it got to be too much at times and bogged down the story. I felt the story would have moved a bit faster if we didn’t have all those scenes. But overall, ON SECOND THOUGHT delivers an emotional story that has a few lows and several highs to keep the reader glued to the pages. With each page I flipped, I found myself rooting for both girls as they navigated their way in a life they never thought they would experience. With sadness and tears that turn to laughter and smiles, Ms. Higgins delivers an emotional story that will keep the reader entertained till the very end. Ms. Higgins is a talented writer who can captivate her readers and delivers a story that they can’t help but fall in love with. If you enjoy a woman’s fiction story with some intriguing characters and storyline then you might enjoy ON SECOND THOUGHT. You don’t need to read If You Only Knew first as this is a stand al one story.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement


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