Thank you to Maria Anne Lenihan and Hayling Bookstorm for sending me an ARC copy and allowing me to read this story. I am voluntarily writing this honest review.
*Image Credit: Hayling Bookstorm
Synopsis
Val, a corporate lawyer living in NYC, had a plan for her career. Become a partner at the firm she works with. The universe had other plans for her. When she suffers a panic attack while at work, she is allowed to take some time away from work to figure things out. She decides to head to Martha’s Vineyard, a place she spent a lot of time when she was a kid, and spend the summer there doing just that. She rediscovers her love of writing and meets some unexpected love of another sort.
Luke, a local construction worker/business owner, needs a babysitter for his daughter Luna. Val comes to the rescue and over the summer, he builds an unexpected connection with the woman he has hired to babysit his daughter. This one’s for the 30-something millennial woman who has found herself unfilled in her career and life and is searching for that next step.
Content Warnings
Burnout Recovery Rep.
Grief
Panic Attacks Depicted
Tropes
Coming-of-thirties
Carpenter MMC
Attorney-Turned-Writer FMC
Single Dad
He Falls First
Forced Proximity
Slow Burn
Friends to Lovers
Found Family
Just for the summer, but asks her to stay
Spice Level
3 chili peppers
Review
It was really touch and go there for a bit, but about halfway through, the story got real interesting. I could smell a love triangle as soon as both Max and Luke showed up. However, it was more like what happens in all the Hallmark movies I watch. The man she’s dating, but isn’t sure about, doesn’t support her and it takes her visiting a small town and meeting the local hottie to figure it out. So yes, this gave Hallmark vibes through and through.
It felt like the perfect summer read with the Martha’s Vineyard setting. I also really liked the throughline of trying to figure out your next steps as a 30-something-year-old and realizing the career you’ve had for so long has actually been sucking the life out of you. If you’re a millennial and a 30-something woman, you will relate hard to this. I sure did! I will say though that I did find Val somewhat annoying. She was so worried about everyone else’s opinion and didn’t believe in herself. There was a lot of her hemming and hawing. I can’t fault her too much though because I was the same way. Maybe that’s why I found her kind of annoying, lol.
Thanks for reading stunners! Check out some of my other ARC reviews here and here.
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