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Blurb
Callie Evans isn’t exactly living her best life in Los Angeles. She dropped out of college, has been repeatedly fired, and is now literally watching paint dry at a hardware store for a living. This depressing existence isn’t what she had planned for her early twenties, but here she is.
Although she’s faced a shattering trauma, she’s learning that avoiding grief has owned her for far too long. A change of scenery might be what she needs to regroup and move forward.
Callie takes a few months away from her California chaos to handle renovations on her family’s old house in small-town Vermont. This temporary escape could be just the thing to ease the pain that crushed her past and continues to impact her present. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll get a chance to reconnect with a certain boy from her childhood, whom she’s now aching to see again.
When Callie rolls back into her hometown, she finds that her preteen crush, Danny, has turned into a wildly hot twenty-something. The things that haven’t changed are his humor and kindness. But Danny’s hidden demons might possibly be even more painful than her own.
As Callie spends the summer falling in love with cooking, home repairs, and hosting brunches for her quirky neighbors, she also fights falling in actual love with Danny. After all, she knows from experience that love is never guaranteed to last.
Only the summer will tell.
Review
4.5 stars!
I am a big fan of Jessica Park’s writing, and was so excited to see that she is back with a new book after a writing hiatus. And she’s back with a beautifully written, emotional story about finding yourself and where you belong, and falling in love along the way. This is a beautifully heartfelt romance, and I loved it!
Callie is a 21 year old woman who is completely lost and directionless. Her mother moved her and her sister to LA after the death of her beloved father, and Callie has never really found her way. She dropped out of college, has no friends, and she’s just been fired from her boring job. So when she learns that her mother is wanting to renovate and sell her old family home in Vermont, she jumps at the chance to return to the small town that she loved so much and the house that holds all of her happy childhood memories to oversee the renovations – but really, she’s just desperate to find some sort of meaning in her life.
I’m not expecting to have fun.
I’m only hoping I can find something more than what I have now.
On arriving in the small town of Wake, she quickly comes to the realisation that people in town remember her, and she is welcomed with open arms. And nobody welcomes her more enthusiastically than her childhood friend, Danny, who is now a gorgeous twenty-something who works with the local construction company and who will be working on her house for the summer.
Danny inserts himself right into Callie’s life, and he’s just like the fun, playful boy that she remembers. They laugh, talk, and spend time together, and his kindness and obvious care are just what Callie needs to drag herself out of the funk she’s been living in. And while finally grieving her past, throwing herself into home renovations, and discovering a new passion for cooking, Callie begins to settle, feeling happy, rejuvenated, and more herself than she has for years.
I exhale for what feels like the first time in ages. A real exhale. One that isn’t solely about breathing to sustain life. One that might be about choosing to live life. It’s both blissful and disarming.
This is a beautifully written story, I loved the description of the town and the people, and I was so happy to see Callie deal with her past and her emotions, and really come in to her own. But, of course, my heart was truly captured by the romance, and OMG, what a swoonfest!
Danny is absolutely gorgeous. He’s a wonderful friend and such a sweetheart, and though things move a bit slowly at first, it works to build the chemistry and allow Callie and Danny to truly become reacquainted, so that by the time the sexual tension becomes too much, they dive right in and it’s all on.
“I’m going to fall so deeply in love with you that I won’t know where I stop and where you begin, and I’ll never come back from that. And I don’t want to.”
I love romance like this! Open and honest, where two people just follow their hearts and allow themselves to fall. There is no angst, or stupid behaviour, it’s just two people exploring all that they feel for each other, and I loved watching them find something so incredibly special together.
“I want to know what it feels like to fall so deeply in love that I can never come out of it … I want to be so engulfed and so intrinsically tied to another person … I want that with you.”
There is some drama, which comes from both Callie’s and Danny’s pasts. They have issues they need to deal with, and it brings some emotion, but like I said, the story is angst-free, and the drama is written in a way where it enhances the story without dragging it down, which I really appreciate.
There’s a fantastic cast of side characters that come into Callie’s life, each of them unique and well-developed, and I love that Park gave us some interesting and engaging side stories. If I have any complaint about this book – at times it is a little on the cheesy side, and things seemed just a little bit too perfect, but I was able to enjoy the romance, and get swept up in the happy.
This book reminds me a little of Under the Tuscan Sun, as a lost woman truly discovers herself while throwing her passion into creating a home, making beautiful meals for her friends, and creating a family for herself. It’s a great coming-of-age story with a gorgeous romance, and a whole lot of happy feels, and I loved it.
4.5 stars!
An Advanced Review Copy was generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.