First Time in Forever by Sarah Morgan (Puffin Island #1)
Released: February 24, 2015
Contemporary Romance
Harlequin

Reviewed by Mandi

This is the first book in Sarah Morgan’s Puffin Island series and I’m not in love with it. I loved, loved, loved her last trilogy, O’Neill brothers and not to compare to that one – but I’m totally going to compare to that one. This book felt a little forced. Let me set it up before I get more into it.

Emily has been working hard in New York City until she gets a call that her estranged sister, a Hollywood actress, died in a plane crash, leaving her six-year-old daughter behind. The supposed father also died in the crash. Emily had not talked to her sister for years. Her sister was very rude, very selfish and by all accounts, not a great mother. Emily is very stable, mature and has a good head on her shoulders – but – she doesn’t want kids. And to her shock, her sister had named her guardian of her daughter. Her sister’s death made great waves in the tabloids, and to keep Juliet safe from prying eyes, Emily flees to upstate Maine, to a place called Puffin Island. Emily would spend summers in Puffin Island with her girlfriends and has fond memories of the place, except for the fact she is absolutely terrified of the water. She has a dark tragic past with water and now can barely stand to be near the ocean. But her friend owns a cabin on Puffin Island and has offered Emily an escape from the tabloids to sort out her new life.

Ryan owns a restaurant/bar on Puffin Island and grew up here. A former journalist, his parents died when he was thirteen and he ended up raising his siblings along with this elderly grandmother. He traveled a lot when he worked as a journalist, but he gave that up for a quiet life on Puffin Island. Ryan and Emily have a mutual friend in the person that owns the cabin that Emily is staying in, and that friend asks Ryan to keep an eye on Emily. So he does. Ryan isn’t really looking to have kids either because he spent his young adult life raising his siblings, so Emily’s niece isn’t necessarily a draw for him.

That’s the basic set-up. Earlier when I said things felt forced I mean that there is so much thrown in this story it doesn’t feel organic. Emily runs to an ocean town to hide from the press, but has a genuine paranoia of the water. She is running from gossip magazines but Ryan used to be a journalist. Emily is so uptight and high-strung over her new guardianship. Ryan doesn’t necessarily want kids. It’s a lot to take in. It felt too set-up for me.

And even more so, the chemistry between Ryan and Emily just wasn’t there. I really liked Ryan – he is truly a good guy. Both Ryan and Emily have good friends and there is good time devoted to them in this book. The setting of Puffin island was great and I could picture the ocean and the small town they all live in. But everything else never fell into place for me. Where her previous trilogy was so charming and romantic, this one missed the mark.

But I’ll try book two for sure.

Rating: C

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