Happy After All by Maisey Yates

 

"It's a truth universally acknowledged--at least, in a romance novel--that the moment the main character has her life in order, the exact person she doesn't want to meet will come along and knock all that careful order into disarray. For example, when a respectable motel owner who has decided to focus on her writing career and her own personal happiness is beginning to feel satisfied with the way she's rebuilding her life, a disastrously gorgeous man will walk in and disrupt everything."

Amelia fled to Rancho Encanto to rewrite her life. She's not looking for romance. Then Nathan Hart comes to her motel to write for the summer. He's aloof and keeps to himself, but Amelia can't help feeling a spark of attraction between them. Not only are they both writers, they're both grieving loss and trying to move forward and heal. But heartbreak is hard to overcome. 

"We would never have met if our lives hadn't crashed and burned. But it doesn't feel like something that happened because of tragedy. It feels like a small miracle. An oasis in the middle of the desert, which in many ways is what Rancho Encanto is."

This is such a good book! I loved how Yates starts each chapter with a romance trope, and how Amelia, a romance writer, uses that framework to narrate her own story. I thought it was very clever and fun. But this is not a simple summer romance. There's a range of emotions in this one: laughter and loss, hurt and hiding from that sadness, grumpiness, joy, lots of tears, and love. Both Amelia and Nathan had to navigate their own grief in order to find healing and hope. I also loved Amelia's found family full of quirky characters living in this small desert community. They made me smile. 

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

Not just a summer romance...

 

Ben and Anna had a plan to sail the Caribbean together. But then Ben took his own life and Anna now has to figure out how to live without him. Only it's not working. So on the day they were supposed to set sail, Anna decides to take Ben's boat and make the trip alone. But Anna's never sailed without Ben, so she hires a professional sailor to show her the ropes.

Keane is grieving, too. He lost his lower right leg in a car accident a year ago and now no one will hire him to race with their crew, even though he has a prosthetic leg that makes it possible and sailboat racing is the thing he loves most in the world. Until he meets Anna.

My thoughts:  Float Plan by Trish Doller is one of those poignant and charming reads that had me hooked from the first page. I really felt for Anna as she grieved Ben's death and the loss of all their dreams. I also admired her resilience as she found new hopes and dreams for herself.

"I'm starting to understand how sadness and happiness can live side by side within a heart. And how that heart can keep on beating."

Her relationship with Keane as they went from polite strangers to caring friends to more was a touching journey. There's a lot of humor and heart in this book. I also really enjoyed reading about all the different islands they visited; it made me want to set sail around the Caribbean myself. All in all, Trish Doller has written an amazing story that I loved a lot.  

Happy Reading!

The Language of Sand

"We was a term she hadn't uttered in a while. For Abigail, there was no more we. To her, we meant her family, her husband and son. Her main frame of reference was as we:  We bought a new house. We're having a baby. We're going out to eat. Now all that remained was I. It was the second of only two one-letter words in the entire dictionary, the first being A. Each was defiantly singular. The language would be nothing without them. Abigail felt she was nothing without we. She missed we." 

When life as she knows it ends one night in heartbreaking tragedy, Abigail Harker seeks refuge at the lighthouse on Chapel Isle, a secluded island in North Carolina's Outer Banks. It was where her husband loved to go as a boy. Where she hopes to be able to grieve in peace. But the caretaker's cottage isn't exactly the haven she thought it would be:  it's isolated and rundown, very rundown, and it's also apparently haunted by Wesley Jasper, the former lighthouse keeper who experienced his own tragedy in 1902. And while many of the islanders are friendly and welcoming, some are not. And the words that Abby once loved as a lexicographer seem to have failed her. For there are no words to deal with her loss. Still, she's doing her best to keep moving forward. But then there's a rash of robberies on the island. And an approaching hurricane. And Abby begins to think coming to Chapel Isle might not have been such a good idea after all.

"Whether you stay here in Chapel Isle or take the next ferry home, it won't make a bit of difference. It's like trying to serve two masters. You've got the grief and you've got your life. The one you choose to serve is up to you."

 I loved this book:  the lyrical writing, the exploration of words and language, the quirky cast of island characters, and Abby's own reinvention of her life. Ellen Block is an amazing writer, and The Language of Sand is a magical story full of hope and heart. There's nothing I would change about it. Best of all, there's a sequel:  The Definition of Wind. 

Happy Reading!