{"id":63876,"date":"2022-03-21T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=63876"},"modified":"2022-03-21T04:43:32","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T08:43:32","slug":"review-serendipity-the-lake-family-0-5-by-jennifer-van-wyk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=63876","title":{"rendered":"Review: Serendipity (The Lake Family, #0.5) by Jennifer Van Wyk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Free: Available from Prolific Works<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\r\n <\/div><\/div><\/b><\/h4>\n
\n

Review<\/b><\/h4>\n

5 stars<\/b><\/p>\n

OMG, I loved this story! It\u2019s short, but it packs a punch, as friends in their 40s find love the second time around in a funny, sweet, emotional and steamy novella.<\/p>\n

Leah\u2019s husband of 20+ years has up and deserted the family, and she is 45 years old and left alone with four teenage children. Of course she\u2019s devastated, but she takes strength from her children, and their life together, and she picks herself up and gets on with her life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s two years later when also-divorced long-time family friend, Stone, finally makes the move that he\u2019s been wanting to make for years, and puts his heart on the line to finally woo the woman he wants.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve exercised more patience than I thought I possessed hoping for her to be with me in the feelings I have for her. It\u2019s not who I am. I see something I want, and I go for it. But with Leah, I knew that I needed to go gentle. I needed to give her time.
\nTime\u2019s up. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OMG, Jennifer Van Wyk has written some incredible literary men, and now she\u2019s given us Stone! He has strong alpha vibes, but is so sweet and romantic. He\u2019s gentle with Leah, knowing that he\u2019s guiding her into something potentially huge, and his honesty, thoughtfulness, little romantic gestures and heartfelt declarations had me swooning madly!<\/p>\n

\u201cOur marriages ended for a reason, Leah. Those weren\u2019t our people.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd you think I\u2019m your person?\u201d she asks quietly, a little skeptical.
\nYes. With one hundred percent certainty. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cI am in this with you. Every step. However fast or slow you want it to go.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everything between them unfolds beautifully and perfectly with loads of chemistry, sizzling sexy time, and very little drama. This story felt real. The characters are real, their reactions are real, and I could see it all unfolding before me as I read, and I love that! I could feel everything between Leah and Stone, and loved watching them come together.<\/p>\n

This novella is a prequel to the upcoming Lake Family<\/i> series, which will have books for each of Leah\u2019s four children, and there are already some fantastic setups there! These kids are a great bunch \u2013 beautifully proactive of their mom, funny and sweet with fun dynamics, and I am so freaking excited to carry on with this series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to know what your intentions are with our mom.\u201d \u2026 \u201cDad totally dicked her over and acted like a tool. Don\u2019t do that. She deserves to be treated like a queen and with respect, you know? If you can\u2019t do that, I suggest you walk away now and maybe y\u2019all can just stay friends.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I absolutely loved this one. It was way shorter than I wanted it to be, but still gave me all the feels, and is a gorgeously romantic story.<\/p>\n

5 stars!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lake Family<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\" \u00a0\"\" \u00a0\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\"Cover \u00a0\"Cover<\/p>\n

Serendipity (#0.5)<\/strong> (Leah & Stone)
\nReview<\/a>
\nFree: Available from Prolific Works<\/a><\/p>\n

Indescribable (#1)<\/strong> (Brock & Naomi)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

Effortless<\/strong> (Cash & Hadley)
\nReview<\/a>
\nBuy:\u00a0 Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

Forbidden<\/strong> (Corbin & Ryker)
\nTo be released 2022<\/p>\n

Remarkable<\/strong> (Boone)
\nTo be released<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Free: Available from Prolific Works Review 5 stars OMG, I loved this story! It\u2019s short, but it packs a punch, as friends in their 40s find love the second time around in a funny, sweet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,25,36,9,1036,29],"tags":[790,1374,48],"class_list":["post-63876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feeeeeeels","category-friends-to-lovers","category-novella","category-romance","category-single-parent","category-steamy","tag-jennifer-van-wyk","tag-lake-family","tag-review"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Serendipity.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gaNL-gCg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}