carolesrandomlife

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I loved this book! I have been a fan of Jill Shalvis's books since I picked up one of her books a few years ago. I haven't read all of her books yet but I have kept up with all of her more recent releases. This book might be my favorite out of those I have read. I had such a great time with this book and found it really hard to put down. This book is the fifth book in the Wildstone series but each of the books in the series read as stand-alone novels so you can feel free to jump into the series anywhere.

I was taken by the cast of characters in this story right away. Brynn is going back home to her two moms in Wildstone after being taken advantage of by her boyfriend. Kinsey has lived with major health problems for a long time and feels like she has an expiration date so she avoids making connections with the exception of Eli. Eli has been Kinsey's best friend since they were kids. He has had plenty of his own issues but he watches out for Kinsey even though they are just friends. Brynn, Kinsey, and Eli all went to summer camp together and some of their memories of each other are less than pleasant.

All of the characters in this book felt very authentic to me. Brynn's entire life was turned upside down but she working to put things back together. I loved her two moms but understood her desire to be out on her own. Kinsey has been dealing with some pretty big health issues for years and I thought that she had a pretty good attitude about everything. Eli has been through a lot of things in his life but he still wants to take care of those that he is close to.

This book did a lot of things really well. I love the romance between Brynn and Eli and thought that they were great together. I was thrilled that we got a second romance in this book with Kinsey and Beck and I thought that their story was really well done. The relationship between Kinsey and Brynn was really pivotal to the book. I enjoyed seeing them open up and start to trust each other. I thought that getting a glimpse of how they saw each other as kids through their journal entries added a lot to the story.

I would highly recommend this book to others. I thought that it was a very well done story with a great cast of characters that focused on a variety of relationships. I cannot wait to read more from Jill Shalvis!

I won an advanced review copy of this book from William Morrow Paperbacks through a giveaway on Goodreads.

Initial Thoughts
I loved this book. It falls somewhere between 4 and 5 stars for me and I am rounding up for now. I loved the characters in this book and their complicated relationships just seemed to work for me. There were a lot of things going on in this story and I think that the characters all really grew throughout the book. It was a lot of fun to see them all work to improve their relationships.