Publisher: Berkley
Published: January 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-0593200339
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Format: Print from Publisher
Reviewed by name and email address: Gina
myreviewbooks@aol.com
TWO-1/2 HEARTS
Bethany Jones, aka, Bee, is a rescuer. No, not your EMT type rescuer. More like she saves people from financial debt, broken relationships and losing their homes. She has a big heart but at the same time feels little. She can’t because if she does she’ll break. Her parents long ago gave up on her brother, Isaac and with his latest fiasco she’s spent the money she spent years saving to embark on the career of her dreams. Does he thank her? No he asks for more. When in a moment of giving into flight instead of fight, she heads to Pine Lake, New York and her friend Syd just to get away for awhile. There she meets Denny Torres.
Denny is your basic major hottie. But he doesn’t have the ego that you might expect. He’s made some decisions his family and some friends haven’t agreed with. He himself came to Pine Lake not long ago and fell in love with the town. He has a big house with basically nothing in it—a statement of how he feels about his life – empty. When he meets Bee though, something shifts inside of him and maybe, just maybe, he’s found a direction. At least he might have found a new friend and just in time because his parents are on their way to visit and he needs his house set up in style.
Bee considers the interior design job Denny needs done—she plans to earn her commission and then she’s off to that design school she’s spent a lifetime dreaming of. Or is she?
Can two people with different goals taking them to different places let their hearts lead?
I really enjoyed the first two books in Lauren Accardo’s Adirondacks series. WILD LOVE was a good read, SWEET LOVE, book 2 was even better. I couldn’t put either one down the stories were so good. The third book, BOLD LOVE, was a let down for me. I felt like she bit off more than she could chew and tried to hit too many bases at once. That’s sad because in reading her notes at the end, this one was the one that was the nearest and dearest to her own heart. Maybe that personal involvement in it was what got in the way of a good story.
I liked Denny and Bee in and of themselves. They were good characters, although the way Denny was portrayed in WILD LOVE was a lot savvier and emotionally stronger than the Denny I saw in BOLD LOVE. When Bee was seen as a strong character she was great. When she was her brother’s doormat it didn’t work for me. I did enjoy the updates as it were, of the characters from the earlier books. I get it that Accardo married into an amazing family and wanted to show case some of the characteristics she loves best about them. I saw that in Denny. I couldn’t stand Isaac and his redemption seemed forced to me. It didn’t work.
What didn’t work for me was the go nowhere storylines about her gay roommates and the teen sexual identity issues. She touched on them, tried to do a good job presenting the conflicts those individuals go through, but it came across mainly like she was told she needed to write a GLBT or teen sexual crisis type book. It didn’t move the story along, I wasn’t interested in it and it fell flat.
In her closing notes Accardo says that this is the last book of the series. I hope not. Pine Ridge might be a small town, but even small towns have lots of good stories to tell. What about Karen and Yuri? Why not write a story about an older couple who are finding love after their spouses are gone and children raised? With how Accardo dealt with alcoholism and other life issues in the first two books I think she’d do a fantastic job in a book about Karen and Yuri and the issues they face as seniors. Beyond them, again, even a small town has its share of stories. Pine Ridge is a great location to tell them.
This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.
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