Spring for Best Friends by Eliza Boyd

From Goodreads:

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

Winter of Second Chances by Eliza Boyd

From Goodreads:

Chastity and Chase were high school sweethearts.
Then their marriage crumbled under pressure and Chase left town.
Now that he's engaged again, he returns to True Love with one mission: To finally get a divorce.
But True Love will make sure they get a second chance.

My Take:
This was a cute story about a town with mystical powers that just wouldn't give up on two people when they'd given up on themselves. I enjoyed it and actually read it all in one day. There were a few typos, but that could be because I had an advanced reader copy. Hopefully, they will be fixed once the book is released on February 28th (just 2 days!) on Amazon.

Okay, let's dig in. What I liked about this book:
Ten years have gone by, but Chastity has moved on with her life. Mostly. She's bought her own business and is doing her best to make it succeed. It's a struggle, and she hasn't written that book yet, and she isn't dating, but she doesn't seem to be wallowing in missing Chase. It's obvious she was heartbroken and still thinks of him, but she didn't quit her life. She continued to grow and move on the best she could. When Chase shows back up she's sucker-punched with the surprises that come one after another. I won't tell you so as to avoid the spoilers.

The second thing that I like was that when the time came for Chase to cut the ties with Jessica (his fiance before returning to True Love) it went well. Although she sounds and looks likes she's going to be one of those women, she's not. I appreciated that Boyd didn't completely follow that trope.

I loved that it didn't just fall into place as soon as Chase said goodbye to Jessica. Marjorie is one smart woman! A little bit of time to calm down and think was needed, even if it felt like the end of the world all around. Okay, that is close to being a spoiler.

Here's the nitpicks:
I got tired of all the "I'm feeling something/thinking something that I don't want to right now, so I just won't feel/think it." Several times I just wanted to say, sit down and figure it out already! You know what you want, you know what's going on, just face up to it and own it.

And Chastity was WAY too nice. It all makes sense because that's her personality. However, she only blew up and yelled at him once. I felt she deserved a little more than that, but what we got was satisfying.

I give Winter of Second Chances by Eliza Boyd a solid 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