New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis returns to Wildstone with the touching story of finding your place in the world—and the people who make it home.
ALMOST JUST FRIENDS by JILL SHALVIS
Series: Wildstone #4
Genre: women's fiction
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: January 21, 2020
Synopsis:
Piper Manning’s about as tough as they come, she’s had to be. She raised her siblings and they’ve thankfully flown the coop. All she has to do is finish fixing up the lake house her grandparents left her, sell it, and then she’s free.
When a massive storm hits, she runs into a tall, dark and brooding stranger, Camden Reid. There’s a spark there, one that shocks her. Surprising her further, her sister and brother return, each of them holding their own secrets. The smart move would be for Piper to ignore them all but Cam unleashes emotions deep inside of her that she can’t deny, making her yearn for something she doesn’t understand. And her siblings…well, they need each other.
Only when the secrets come out, it changes everything Piper thinks she knows about her family, herself…and Cam. Can she find a way to outrun the demons? The answer is closer than she thinks—just as the new life she craves may have already begun.
When a massive storm hits, she runs into a tall, dark and brooding stranger, Camden Reid. There’s a spark there, one that shocks her. Surprising her further, her sister and brother return, each of them holding their own secrets. The smart move would be for Piper to ignore them all but Cam unleashes emotions deep inside of her that she can’t deny, making her yearn for something she doesn’t understand. And her siblings…well, they need each other.
Only when the secrets come out, it changes everything Piper thinks she knows about her family, herself…and Cam. Can she find a way to outrun the demons? The answer is closer than she thinks—just as the new life she craves may have already begun.
Purchase your copy:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iBooks | Google Play
"Shalvis unites two people healing from emotional trauma in this tender contemporary...Believable, realistic characters are at the heart of this novel. Shalvis will immediately grab the reader's attention with a strong heroine and caring connection between two wounded souls."
-- Publishers Weekly
Praise for Almost Just Friends:
"Shalvis unites two people healing from emotional trauma in this tender contemporary...Believable, realistic characters are at the heart of this novel. Shalvis will immediately grab the reader's attention with a strong heroine and caring connection between two wounded souls."
-- Publishers Weekly
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras with her family and far too many assorted quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental.
Look for Jill's latest, LOST AND FOUND SISTERS on shelves and e-readers now, and get all her bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold.
Visit Jill's website for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.
You can find her on:
REVIEW
Almost Just Friends by Jill ShalvisMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the story of two families and how they learn to overcome tragedies and challenges together. Piper is the oldest sibling of the Mannings, and soon after their parents' untimely death, she quickly stepped into the role of raising her brother and sister. Ill equipped to deal with the emotional wounds they were collecting, the family has been slowly rotting at their roots. Pushing down feelings of grief, guilt, and resentment, there was no healing for anyone. On the outside, everyone appears to have their lives under control, but on the inside, everything is one step away from ruin.
Piper is stubborn, messy, anti-social, and bossy. She also has the most giving heart of anyone you'll ever meet, she's tenacious when it comes to things that matter, and would carry the weight of the world on her own shoulders if it meant her family was lighter because of it. Through the years she has sacrificed a lot, but now a new path is finally within her grasp. Selling the family home will allow her to go back to school and pursue a different career path somewhere new. Of course things don't go at all as planned. Winnie and Gavin arrive in town for a visit and it doesn't take long before things start to unravel.
Secrets are a huge part of the conflict in the story. For me, I think that the Mannings' worst fault was their inability to be honest and communicate with one another. Many times I was yelling through the screen of my kindle, wishing I could penetrate some sense into their thick skulls. I don't think Piper was given enough credit by her brother and sister because they always feared the worst possible reaction from her. Rather than come clean, they all became expert level at ignoring the elephant in the room. This didn't seem fair to me at all, because despite her penchant for bossiness, she was never anything but unconditionally supportive. I would say that was my one frustration with the story, the amount of time they spent dancing around the truth and keeping her in the dark out of fear. Winnie also pulled Cam unwillingly into her deception and because of his sense of honor he felt obligated to keep silent.
Camden Reid is in Wildstone to spend time with his father during some down time from his job in the DEA and the Coast Guard Reserve. Like Piper, his family is broken and currently a big hot mess. Growing up, he had to deal with his parents' divorce, his mother's mental illness, and now he must find a way to build a new relationship with his father as they grieve together. A sudden loss in the family has him reeling with devastation. Not only is it bad timing to be meeting Piper at this point with both of their lives so messy, she's commitment shy even on a good day. Naturally, they both try to ignore, then fight their attraction for one another. There are a million reasons why pursuing a romance couldn't work, leading to more heartbreak. Cam shows her with his actions that he's there to be her partner. To be there for her to lean on when she feels lost and tired, something she hasn't experienced in a very long time. She's so used to trying to solve everything on her own, that she doesn't quite know what to do with it.
There were multiple threads to the story that weave together cohesively into one. It alternates between Piper, Winnie, Gavin, and Cam and they learn how to be a strong family unit. I love Jill Shalvis' women fiction titles because they have a heavy element of romance, and this was no exception. We also got her trademark humor to keep things light as the Mannings and Reids tackled things like grief, recovering from addiction, and unplanned pregnancy. This was a great addition to the Wildstone series and one I would recommend wholeheartedly.
Even when she was an unlovable mess, he looked at her in a way that stole her breath every time. He was her person.
FOLLOW SMOKIN HOT BOOK BLOG ON:
0 komentarze:
Post a Comment