July 2019 – Zakiya N. Jamal

Synopsis:

Life is a mixed bag for Piper Calloway.

On the one hand, she’s a twenty-nine-year-old VP at her dad’s multibillion-dollar real estate development firm, and living the high single life with her two best friends in a swanky downtown penthouse. On the other hand, she’s considered a pair of sexy legs in a male-dominated world and constantly has to prove her worth. Plus she’s stuck seeing her narcissistic ex-fiancé—a fellow VP—on the other side of her glass office wall every day.

Things get exponentially more complicated for Piper when she runs into Kyle Miller—the handsome new security guard at Calloway Group, and coincidentally the first love of her life.

The guy she hasn’t seen or heard from since they were summer camp counselors together. The guy from the wrong side of the tracks. The guy who apparently doesn’t even remember her name.

Piper may be a high-powered businesswoman now, but she soon realizes that her schoolgirl crush is still alive and strong, and crippling her concentration. What’s more, despite Kyle’s distant attitude, she’s convinced their reunion isn’t at all coincidental, and that his feelings for her still run deep. And she’s determined to make him admit to them, no matter the consequences.

Purchase From:

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound

Review

*I received a free advanced reader’s copy of this book via Atria Books. This did not influence my review of this book in anyway. This is an honest review of the novel as I saw it. This novel will be released on August 6, 2019.*

I’m so excited to be a part of the blog tour for K. A. Tucker’s upcoming novel, Say You Still Love Me. Full disclosure, I hadn’t read a novel by Tucker prior to this book but the synopsis sounded so good and I love romance so I figured why not and I was not disappointed.

This novel jumps between the present when our protagonist Piper is dealing with sexism at her father’s office and the past were Piper is a counselor at a summer camp for the first time. At both stages of Piper’s life she runs into Kyle Miller, a man who’s the opposite of who her father would believe is a good match for her. The difference? In the present, Kyle pretends he doesn’t remember Piper and in the past they were each others first love.

Thus, while in the past we see Kyle and Piper fall in love and then fall apart, in the present we see them try to find their way back to each other and man did they pull at my heartstrings. It’s so easy to question how two people who are obviously meant to be together struggle to get together but I felt for both Kyle and Piper. Their issues were real and valid, and trying to untangle the mystery of their past kept me turning page after page. I truly couldn’t put this book down and finished it in a day.

The romance was steamy with a dash of smut, but what Tucker almost effortlessly pulled off was the twist at the end. I was totally unprepared to discover what happened during that summer at camp and the unfortunate outcome of it all. Yes this story is about Kyle and Piper but I like how Tucker made this into a bigger story, encompassing Kyle and Piper’s friends from camp as well.

Overall, this was a great read for me. I’ll definitely be checking out more of Tucker’s books in the future. Make sure to grab your copy when the book goes on sale on August 6 and/or enter to win a copy here!

More About the Author

k. a. tucker.jpg — Photo Credit: Christa Hogan, Storeybook Studios

K.A. Tucker writes captivating stories with an edge. She is the bestselling author of the Ten Tiny Breaths and Burying Water series and the novels He Will Be My Ruin, Until It Fades, Keep Her Safe, and The Simple Wild. She currently resides in a quaint town outside Toronto with her husband and two beautiful girls.

Borrow or Buy: Buy for the cover alone honestly (though the inside is just as wonderful, obviously).

Stars:

Other Reviews
Aestas Book Blog
Cocktails & Books
Why Girls Are Weird

Synopsis:

One year. Nine events. Nine chances to . . . fall in love?

Weddings. Funerals. Barbecues. New Year’s Eve parties. Name the occasion, and Sophie Evans will be there. Well, she has to be there. Sophie works for the local florist, so she can be found at every big event in her small hometown, arranging bouquets and managing family dramas.

Enter Andrew Hart. The son of the fancy new chef in town, Andrew is suddenly required to attend all the same events as Sophie. Entitled, arrogant, preppy Andrew. Sophie just wants to get her job done and finish up her sketches so she can apply to design school. But every time she turns around, there is Andrew, getting in her way and making her life more complicated. Until one day she wonders if maybe complicated isn’t so bad after all . . .

Told over the course of one year and following Sophie from event to event, this delightful novel from master of romantic comedy Kasie West shows how love can blossom in unexpected places.

Review

*I received a free advanced reader’s copy of this book via #booksfortrade on Twitter. This did not influence my review of this book in anyway. This is an honest review of the novel as I saw it. This novel will be released on July 9, 2019.*

I’m a big Kasie West fan and have made it my mission to read every romance novel she writes, which is why I was so happy to snag an ARC of her latest novel.

Maybe This Time follows Sophie, a small town girl who desperately wants to move to the big city (New York). Over the course of the year we follow Sophie as her job working at a flower shop requires her to attend various events. Also attending those events are her best friend, Micah, who works for her dad’s catering company, and the new guy in town, Andrew Hart, who’s celebrity chef dad has taken Micah’s father under his wing.

After Andrew and Sophie have the opposite of a meet-cute, Sophie is totally over him, and Andrew isn’t exactly her biggest fan either. Thus begins one of my favorite tropes: hate-to-love. As the two are forced together again and again, Sophie begins to consider why Andrew gets under her skin. Sophie also has to confront her feelings about her parents and the small town that she loves but also can’t wait to leave.

Sophie is judgmental and headstrong, but she loves her little brother, Gunnar, and Micah fiercely. It was good to see Sophie be called out for her harsh treatment of some of the people in her life, but also recognize that there’s nothing wrong with wanting more for yourself than the life other’s think is right for you.

West did an excellent job of showing how nothing is ever just black and white. Our hopes and dreams are complicated. Love and friendship is complicated. Family is really complicated. And so while I loved the romance of this novel, I get why this was the first West romance cover with just the female protagonist on the cover. This wasn’t just a love story, this was about Sophie finding herself and understanding what she really wanted and then going after it.

I highly recommend this book if you’re looking for a cute summer read that you won’t be able to put down. I certainly couldn’t stop reading until the very last page.

Borrow or Buy: Buy!

Stars: