They’ve been best friends since third grade. Can they overcome their fears and truly find love together?
Olivia Sutton, the owner of Blushing Bridal in the small town of True Love, made a bet with her friend. Her friend paid up, so it’s now Olivia’s turn. It’s time for her to confess to Ryan how much she’s loved him since high school. And she has to ask him to the annual Spring Fling party at the inn—as more than just friends. But when a new woman in town beats her to it, she closes her mouth, not wanting to interfere with Ryan’s potential happiness.
Ryan Hedgewick is getting tired of everyone in town asking about his relationship with Olivia. They’ve always been best friends—that’s it. He’s convinced she’ll never see past his dorky high school phase and love him for the man he is today. That ship has sailed. So when the opportunity to date someone else arises, he takes it, hoping it’ll silence the chatter about him and Olivia. However, when he doesn’t immediately fall in love in a town obsessed with it, he begins to wonder if he already did—with his best friend.
With Ryan’s new relationship making her heartache, will Olivia choose to move away from True Love to find it somewhere else? Or will Ryan and Olivia figure out that true love does exist for them in their small mountain town?
My Take:
I just read the book before this one and enjoyed it so I picked this one up from Book Sprout as an early reader copy as well. This means I got to read it before it's release on March 28th!
Eliza Boyd has an easy to read style and she does a good job introducing her characters and making them real and likable. It did take me a moment to ground myself though because I haven't read the first book in the series and Penelope has a couple of nicknames that I had to get used to real quick. But, moving on...
Olivia and Ryan are the perfect couple who just keep getting in their own way. They've both had feelings for each other at various times over the years and pushed them away out of fear of ruining their friendship. Olivia has finally taken a dare to speak up when a new girl in town asks Ryan out. A lot of people will complain about how spineless and too nice Olivia seems. They will say she should have said something right away. They'll say there are multiple times she could have told him how she felt and she was stupid for not speaking up. Even if it's true, the truth is, there are more women in this world who would make the same choice Olivia does. They would want the man they love be happy, even if it's not with them.
Having said that, I did want to throw the book across the room at one point. Mini spoiler maybe? Ryan decides to make a move. He's done all the things right, but Olivia doesn't know it. He goes in to kiss her, she stops it and kicks him out because she thinks he has a girlfriend. Olivia doesn't even let him explain. That was stupid. And didn't make any sense to me.
In the end, it's the new girl in town that finally get them together. This is one of the things I really enjoy about Boyd's stories. The 'other' woman in both of the ones I've read have not been vicious witches. I appreciate that a lot.
I give Spring for Best Friends a 4 with a Clean rating.
1-5 scale and what it means:
1: I couldn’t even finish it / just plain bad
2: I hope I didn’t pay for this / disappointing
3: I didn’t hate it, but it was still missing something / forgettable but inoffensive
3.5: On the line between good and ok / like, not love
4: Solid mind candy / worth reading
4.5: So very close to perfection! / must read
5: I could not put it down and I’m still thinking about it! / a true treasure
Movie Ratings in relation to my review:
Clean--Hallmark movies, some kissing, no nudity, no sex on or off "screen"
PG--Some innuendo but nothing kids don't hear every day, sex is all closed door
PG-13--some language (swear words not related to sex), more talk about sex, heavy petting, removal of clothing on screen, but sex is closed door.
PG-14—somewhere between PG-13 and R. Not erotica, but at least a paragraph of on-screen sex
R--swearing (F-bomb, on “screen” sex, sometimes feels like the whole story is about the sex and not the relationship or some other plot, but not always
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