I’ve been in quite the reading slump lately, forced to read because I need to for this site, but not wanting to because everything feels the same. I wanted something to make me feel, something to be different. Something to connect with me.
I wasn’t finding it.
And then I found something that started to pull me out from the depths of book boredom – Second Chance Summer, by Liora Blake. I don’t know why, but I have been into romance a lot lately. Maybe it’s the lack of romance in my own life, maybe it’s the way it was written – but Second Chance Summer was enough to give me hope to get out of my reading slump.
SYNOPSIS –
Return to Liora Blake’s Grand Valley series with Second Chance Season, in which an avowed country boy with a family duty meets an ambitious city girl with even bigger goals and who shows him just what he’s been missing.
Garrett Strickland is unapologetically country, fiercely loyal, and perfectly happy with his job at the Hotchkiss Co-op. Garrett is all about living in the present and not dwelling in the past—even if he was once on his way to a lofty agricultural sciences degree that would guarantee the brightest of futures, only to end up back home when his old man died, leaving behind a debt-ridden family farm that was impossible to keep afloat. After that, it was easy to see why dreaming big wasn’t worth the heartache. And until he crosses paths with a city girl who’s hell-bent on kick-starting her own future, he’s sure that good enough is just that.
Cara Cavanaugh is ready for more from life, even if that means changing everything; including dumping her boyfriend of ten years, turning down a lucrative job at a major newspaper, and leaving behind the upscale suburbs of Chicago where she grew up. Now, she just has to pray that temporarily relocating to the middle of nowhere in Colorado will be the first step in building a career as a freelance journalist—all she has to do is prove she’s got what it takes to make a name for herself. Unfortunately, her tony country day school is as close to “country” as she’s ever been. But when a goodhearted guy who looks like he just stumbled out of a country music video offers to help, she ends up falling hard…and discovering that the perfect story is a love story. And it’s theirs.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I love a small town romance. There is something about them that feels so different than a romance that takes place in a city, they feel so unique and different. I even enjoy the tropes of romance.
With Second Chance Summer, it is just that. One person from the big city one person from the country. But these are the romances that I love. The ones that can be misinterpreted, the ones that are actual work to get to. The ones that mean something. Love seems to be so damn easy in so many books.
I am tired of instalove.
I am tired of no angst.
I want sparks to fly and shit to happen.
And in Second Chance Summer – they did. I waited. I read it and I earned the moments of them being together. Every page felt as though I was watching them fall in love. It felt as though I was getting to know them with every sentence and every page.
That was satisfying.
It was as if the slow burn was playing out with every word. The author set up the scenes, the setting, the words flawlessly. Development is her forte.
Second Chance Summer is a great book for the summer. A quick read that will keep you captivated from the first to the last page.
Second Chance Summer is available now.