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A review by amym84
Mermaid Inn by Jenny Holiday
4.0
For Evie Abbott, Moonflower Bay was a summer haven. Staying with her aunt in her magical, aptly named, Mermaid Inn, Evie grew up with summers at the beach, watching The Little Mermaid, and falling in love with Sawyer Collins. Then Sawyer broke her heart, and Evie left for college without looking back.
Ten years later and Evie is back to settle her late aunt's estate which includes the Mermaid Inn. But, as always, there's a catch. Evie must wait a year before she can sell the Inn. Normally, Evie would have been happy to be back at Moonflower Bay, but now it means confronting the person she left behind: Sawyer Collins.
Sawyer never intended to be the villain in Evie's fairy-tale. But he was happy to play the role if it meant getting her out of Moonflower. While he hasn't ever really gotten over Evie, his job as Chief of Police and legal guardian to his younger sister take up a lot of his time, time that will soon be freed up a little when his sister starts college next year. But when Evie walks back into his life, he's loathe to remember why she needed to leave in the first place.
Second-chance romances are probably my favorite. I thought that Jenny Holiday did a really great job of showing the distinction between young/first love, and adult love. And it's not that young people cannot feel love or cannot feel it as much as adults, but we're all shaped by our experiences, so it would go a long way to say that the more experiences you have, changes the way you view things. In Evie and Sawyer's case specifically it changes the way they view their previous relationship. Don't get me wrong, it's not looking back and realizing their relationship was not great the first time around, but it's looking about and realizing that they both had a lot to learn about being in relationships, mainly with finding your voice within the relationship. Vocalizing your wants and needs, being comfortable enough to tell someone the thoughts and opinions that you carry deep within your soul. Jenny Holiday really went a long way to make sure the past deftly felt without even a single flashback sequence.
I've always loved the small-town romance filled with charm and quirky characters. That's certainly the case for Moonflower (dubbed Matchmaker) Bay where a lot of the long-time residents are very invested in Evie and Sawyer seeing what's right in front of them. There's been a lot of good setup for more of the featured secondary characters and I really look forward to going back to this fictional world.
The one thing I still feel a bit iffy about is the idea that things are supposed to proceed a certain way within this romantic realm. I'm trying not to be too spoilery, but in reading many romances and books in general, you can kind of spot some of the more formulatic story threads. Mermaid Inn follows one such thread at the end, but I wanted it to go a different way, and it started to be set up in that it would, but in the end, it followed a tried and true path. It still made me happy, it was still a fun, sexy, sweet read, but I wish it could have gone a bit extra.
Still, I'm so very much looking forward to the next book which will seemingly feature Sawyer's taciturn friend Jake who really deserves to get an HEA.
*ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Ten years later and Evie is back to settle her late aunt's estate which includes the Mermaid Inn. But, as always, there's a catch. Evie must wait a year before she can sell the Inn. Normally, Evie would have been happy to be back at Moonflower Bay, but now it means confronting the person she left behind: Sawyer Collins.
Sawyer never intended to be the villain in Evie's fairy-tale. But he was happy to play the role if it meant getting her out of Moonflower. While he hasn't ever really gotten over Evie, his job as Chief of Police and legal guardian to his younger sister take up a lot of his time, time that will soon be freed up a little when his sister starts college next year. But when Evie walks back into his life, he's loathe to remember why she needed to leave in the first place.
Second-chance romances are probably my favorite. I thought that Jenny Holiday did a really great job of showing the distinction between young/first love, and adult love. And it's not that young people cannot feel love or cannot feel it as much as adults, but we're all shaped by our experiences, so it would go a long way to say that the more experiences you have, changes the way you view things. In Evie and Sawyer's case specifically it changes the way they view their previous relationship. Don't get me wrong, it's not looking back and realizing their relationship was not great the first time around, but it's looking about and realizing that they both had a lot to learn about being in relationships, mainly with finding your voice within the relationship. Vocalizing your wants and needs, being comfortable enough to tell someone the thoughts and opinions that you carry deep within your soul. Jenny Holiday really went a long way to make sure the past deftly felt without even a single flashback sequence.
I've always loved the small-town romance filled with charm and quirky characters. That's certainly the case for Moonflower (dubbed Matchmaker) Bay where a lot of the long-time residents are very invested in Evie and Sawyer seeing what's right in front of them. There's been a lot of good setup for more of the featured secondary characters and I really look forward to going back to this fictional world.
The one thing I still feel a bit iffy about is the idea that things are supposed to proceed a certain way within this romantic realm. I'm trying not to be too spoilery, but in reading many romances and books in general, you can kind of spot some of the more formulatic story threads. Mermaid Inn follows one such thread at the end, but I wanted it to go a different way, and it started to be set up in that it would, but in the end, it followed a tried and true path. It still made me happy, it was still a fun, sexy, sweet read, but I wish it could have gone a bit extra.
Still, I'm so very much looking forward to the next book which will seemingly feature Sawyer's taciturn friend Jake who really deserves to get an HEA.
*ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.