Hi friends! I has been a long time since I wrote any sort of review. But July was a busy month for me. Almost everyone in my family has a July birthday. My son moved out of his apartment and back home! And I had to get ready for RWA. (Which was an amazing experience from which I am still recovering)
Amidst all that I managed to read a few books. Two I want to highlight here are The McAvoy Sisters Book of Secrets by Molly Fader and One Last Chance by Molly O’Keefe. Molly Fader is a pen name of Molly O’Keefe who also uses M. O’Keefe sometimes. Regardless of the name used, I am a fan.
When I saw that she was releasing a mainstream fiction book, I knew I needed it. I used to read a lot of mainstream fic and slowly shifted over to romance and prefer romance 90% of the time. But I will follow a favorite author almost anywhere.
McAvoy Sisters did not disappoint. The story centers around sisters who have a secret and are forced to reconnect. The “wild” one, Lindy returns home when her mother falls ill. Delia, the “responsible” one never left home, begrudgingly runs the family store, and has a family that is falling apart along with her marriage that is holding on by a thread. The sisters deal with their secrets and repair their relationship.
(CW: grief, postpartum depression, aging & ailing parent, sexual assault)
The story is told from multiple POVS- Lindy, Delia, Meredith (their mother) and Brin (Delia’s daughter). Lots of POVs sometimes is not my favorite and took some adjustment but it worked. All the McAvoy women have an important voice here.
Lindy and Delia don’t know how to communicate. It is a trait they learned from their mother. Delia has since carried on the tradition and doesn’t know how to communicate with her daughter. At times I wanted to shake them all, but also I understood them.
Here are the notes to myself and I think it summarizes the book very well:
Delia- Postpartum depression, she’s very sad, and doesn’t know where/how to start to make changes
Lindy- the wild one, protective
Brin- scared, confused, feels left out
Meredith- scared, lost, and lost time
Four flawed women finding a truth and rebuilding their family.
This story was deeply emotional, I could not put it down and it had me crying at 1am. If you are drawn to Molly’s stories for the deeply emotional stories that she tells, I strongly recommend this book. There are light romantic elements and it worked with this story.
Where McAvoy Sisters is all emotion and no sex, One Last Chance is heavy on the sex and emotion.
One Last Chance is a short that was originally part of the Read Me Romance podcast. I picked it up last week and finished it within a couple of hours. It is a marriage in trouble book. I was a little worried about how O’Keefe would make it work, but I shouldn’t have doubted it. This story is loosely connected to The King series but works as a standalone.
Jack is a grumpy and mad bar owner.
Natalie is the wife that left.
Natty comes back to town and wants to repair their marriage. She agrees to work at the bar for two weeks even knowing that Jack will not treat her well. At work he is mean. After work he goes to her hotel room and they have angry sex. Almost broke my heart. But in 78 pages, O’Keefe had me rooting for this couple and hoping they figured out their shit. And of course they did. But it was a sexy and sad ride to get them there.
I loved ONE LAST CHANCE. To me, it’s almost as much about Jack’s journey to realizing the part he has played in the crumbling marriage as it is about the romance. Their final reunion scene made me cry—it was so beautiful and emotional. One of my favorite reads of 2019!