I recently reviewed the last True North series book, and it was also great, and yet here’s another. It’s amazing how Sarina Bowen can put out so many high quality books so quickly. I’m amazed. I have a feeling the series has been pointing in this direction for a long time however, because it intertwines so much with the previous books, going all the way back to the beginning.
We finally find out who nearly ran over Zara. We found out who Benito has been carrying a torch for. We find out more about what the Shipleys and Rossis were like as teenagers. And of course, mean old Jimmy Gage. I think his plot even wraps up Jude’s story with the weird drugs.
Skye and Benito’s story has a lot going on: teenage love and misunderstandings, abuse, the damage that can be caused by neglect in childhood, people making wrong choices, women not sticking up for themselves at work, the importance of female role models in the workforce, and the portrayal of consent.
God, this woman could rip my heart in half again. I know it, and I don’t even care.
Of course, I recommend starting from the beginning with Bittersweet, Griffin and Audrey’s story. There are unique dynamics and stories to each couple, but they all center around the same area, from different perspectives. The sexy times are hot, the stories are sweet and heartwarming, and there’s real emotional plot development with all of the characters. You can’t go wrong visiting this part of fictional Vermont.
I have read Kate Meader before, and the book I read before wasn’t terrible, but I didn’t love it. I felt like it was middle of the road as far as romance goes. (Flirting With Fire, Hot in Chicago series 1) I rated it 3 stars, which means that it was just “okay”. I went ahead and requested this one because I love a good enemies-to-lovers and the premise sounded interesting. But this book told me quickly what kind of book it is, and I was not a fan.
I’m not going to lie. Part of the reason that I loved this book so much was because it was set in Canada, and referenced a lot of Canadian things and used Canadian ways of speaking. It was like going home to a place you love after a long time away. (Literally, in my case.)
The third installment in Helena Hunting’s Hooking Up series takes things in a somewhat different direction. While the first two are more solidly set in New York, this one lounges around the beachfront houses of the Hamptons. Pierce is Amalie’s brother, a lawyer and the current whipping boy of the family after an unfortunate paperwork mistake at his job as patent lawyer for his father’s doll company. He’s hiding in the Hampton’s with his brother, flipping houses, when his fancy car is hit by a woman who drives off after seeing what she’s done. When he thinks he’s found her in a random grocery store, he confronts her, only to find out that she is the twin of the person who actually hit his car.
Boy Toy is the third book in the Man Hands series, which revolves around three friends who all happen to be divorced, and are looking for distraction but end up finding love. In this book, we get Sadie’s story, although we’ve gotten glimpses of what’s going on with her from the very beginning. Sadie has two twin girls who she loves but are exhausting the way that babies are, times two. We’ve known her marriage is kind of rocky all along, but near the end of the second book, Man Card, we find out that her husband has been banging the nanny.
The hardest reviews to write are for books that we just kind of meh. I didn’t like the structure of this book, so that really made it go downhill for me. There is a lot to commend it for, the characters seem to be pretty fleshed out, which doesn’t always happen. But the entire back-and-forth non-linear structure really didn’t work for this book.
I gorged myself on Sarina Bowen’s True North series. I started with Bittersweet and gobbled them up like I was afraid I would starve without them. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I loved her Brooklyn Bruisers series, but for some reason, a small-town series set in rural Vermont wasn’t grabbing me. It wasn’t until Audible sponsored a group listen on Bittersweet that I figured I’d go ahead and start, and then I was hooked. (Never mind that I never figured out how to join in the group discussion, I inhaled those books.)
Stories about school shootings are sadly never not relevant. In fact, the premise behind the tragedy that is the backdrop for the second installment in this series by Roni Loren is scarily prescient. I began reading this book the day of the Santa Fe shooting in Texas, trying to grapple with my own feelings about being so close to this latest preventable tragedy. The motive behind the fictional and the real murders appear to be unimaginably similar.