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★★★★★ 4
A starry second chance romance that’s not to be missed.
Format: Kindle
I’ll admit I was super excited to read this and at the same time apprehensive too because I absolutely loved “Written in the Stars” and didn’t want to set it up on a pedestal of unfair expectations. Not sure I was completely successful on that front ☺️.
So Margot’s story is a second chance romance with Olivia, her high school best friend who ended up marrying the quarterback jock. 11 years later they meet and interesting things happen. Margot is one of those caustic but heart of gold characters that I’ve adored from book one. I loved there was more of that in this book and it was a nice juxtaposition to Olivia’s character that’s basically kindness and generosity personified.
Bellefleur’s writing definitely does the word “rom-com” justice, as the story is packed with plenty of pining and humor. That cat scene being the most memorable of the lot. I also loved the pacing of this book. Second chance romances often tend to yank readers back and forth between timelines, causing reading-whiplash. But in this book, there’s none of that and the story progresses with enough background to keep you engaged and focused.
That brings me to communication tropes. Love-‘em or hate-‘em they are the backbone of angst inducement. This book felt like one ginormous communication trope. Ironically, Margot’s character actually bemoans how she hates it when characters don’t communicate, which I thought was quite tongue and cheek by Bellefleur given how this book flowed.
There’s lots of sexy scenes in this book and while I loved reading them, it also felt like that’s all that was happening. Margot and Olivia weren’t really talking until the very end. So even though I liked the pacing for the majority of the book, the end was like a train hurtling down the track sans brakes. So much was happening, threads being closed with a grand gesture looming, my heart was racing and I even started reading faster which didn’t help my feeling, that it was rushing to the end.
The epilogue was great and I really loved getting glimpses of Elle and Darcy throughout this book. Overall while it may not have the tingly charm of “Written in the stars”, it is a great read that closes out the series nicely.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2022
