A newly single girl. A tall dark handsome stranger. What could go wrong?
It’s 7 a.m. on a Monday morning and Abby Reynolds isn’t where she wants to be. She wants to be in her beautiful loft apartment in Manhattan, drinking a coffee with her fiancé.
Instead, she’s heading back to the childhood home in rural Ireland she swore she’d never return to, with some big old secrets. Namely that she’s suddenly found herself unemployed, homeless, and absolutely 100% single.
She’s feeling all out of luck until the first person she meets after she touches down is an absurdly hot guy called Luke, who offers her a lift home. Gazing deep into his sparkling emerald-green eyes, Abby knows instantly that he’s exactly what she needs to take her mind off everything. The perfect rebound.
It’s a flawless plan. Until the next day, when Abby realizes who he actually is. Not just a stranger. He is, in fact, Luke Bailey, aka the boy next door. Luke Bailey who—so help her God—she’s pretty sure she once shared baths with, back when they were kids. Not that she can allow herself to imagine him in a bath now, not without blushing from head to foot.
And judging by the smirk on his face, the same Luke Bailey who’s known exactly who she was the whole time… And who, like everyone in the village, still thinks she’s a high-flying New Yorker… who’s getting married next year.
Abby is certain getting under Luke will help her get over her ex. But the truth is stopping her. Can she admit to everyone back home that she’s single and has lost everything? Because, if she wants the boy next door, she may just have to…
The perfect feel-good romantic comedy that will make you laugh until you cry and fall completely in love. Fans of Sophie Kinsella, Marian Keyes, and Emily Henry won’t be able to put this down!
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
Louise works for the Irish Oceans Association, a charity dedicated to the conservation and protection of our waters. A few Christmases ago, she gave me a certificate informing me I’d adopted a whale. The year before that it was an eel, so I like to think I’m slowly moving up in the marine world.
You know… You pretend you’re super boring but you’ve always got some little drama happening, don’t you? It’s like the time you told me you had a migraine all weekend but really you’d gone to Aspen with that Hollister model from reception.
“I tend to follow others,” she says. “Everyone thinks I’m a free spirit but I’m not. I’m a barnacle. I latch onto people. If people were boats,” she clarifies.
“How’s your moping?” Tomasz lingers in the doorway of my bedroom the next day, eating an apple. “Going well? It looks like you’re really getting the hang of it.”
My Review:
Catherine Walsh took me to Ireland and made me smirk, sigh, and flinch with this one. Her characters were distinctly Irish and although her heroine, Abby, was not always likable and I actually wanted to smack her a few times, I was engaged and invested in the tale and had hope for her. The humor was clever and well-honed, as was the character development and their unique quirks and foibles. The romance was slow burn and a secondary thread to Abby’s long-standing family drama and career stress. While the pace and emotional tone meandered at times, the perceptive quality of Ms. Walsh’s writing and her amusing wit kept me entertained, involved, and interested in the outcome.
She lived in London for a few years where she worked in Publishing and the non-profit sector before returning to Dublin where she now lives between the mountains and the sea. When not writing she is trying and failing to not kill her houseplants.
