Story of My Life

If you are looking for a book that fits this author's stated vibe : "This series is my love letter to every reader who said they wanted to move to a fictional town." Than have I found the book you have been looking for to spend the upcoming weekend in...and yea I do mean lost in what I am hoping is the new Lucy Score Series of Story Lake, Pennsylvania.

This book had it all & oh so much more! This is a new series about a trio of brothers who are helping to save their small town and family construction business who just might find love along the way if the stop getting in their own way. There's the grumpy one, the one secretive one, and then one that is just a flirt. There are pet racoons, bald eagles, and a pig who each take turns stealing scenes when the family dogs are not already doing so. There's a town busybody who will leave you laughing and the twin pest that has their ow secret adgenda. There are nieces and nephews, a teen town mayor, a persnikity town council woman, nosey town reporters, a roving acapella group, all of that inside the town that -- if you don't run over the town welcome sign -- you will eventually fit in with.

If you laugh when you hear titles like Diane Keaton's Baby Boom, Chevy Chase's Funny Farm, and even Cary Grant's Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, then this book will be a welcome fit for you. But now add to that not one or two but three super hot contractors, a romance novelist writing her way out of the worst case of ex husband induced writer's block, one of the best adorable best friends ever, and town in need to a come back and you have the rest of an award winning recipe for a runaway best seller.

This 5 🌟 3🌶 book is filled from page one to finish with screwball comedy gold, banter that you will re-read just because its so good, MMC narration that has you laughing and wincing at the same time, and an FMC that you will just shout You Go Girl sometimes out loud to an empty room because YES, this book is that good that sometimes you forget these are people on a page and not ones you know in real life.

This is my first Lucy Score novel and it will not be my last!

"I'm just reminding you that you can’t base a character on a real-life person and then not get sued."

Final tally:

Instances of the word 'snarl': 15

Instances of the words 'grump' or 'grumpy': 27

Instances of the word 'growl': 26

Instances of the word 'scowl': 13

For a book this size, north of 500 pages, I fully expected way more to happen. And not even just in the romance sense, just in the overall "is there a story here somewhere in this book with story in the title" sense. I fully admit I don’t normally read romance, but even my basic story need didn't feel met by this one.

Hazel is a writer. Or, was a writer. Or maybe still is in her mind, but hasn't really put anything out since her divorce, so she isn't actually in the minds of everyone who counts. Her friend and agent Zoey delivers an ultimatum – produce a book or get dropped. She ditches big city life for small town life in the hopes of finally finding inspiration, and she does…..in the form of tall, grumpy contractor hired to renovate her decrepit house. A whole town's worth of over-the-top personalities and chaotic shenanigans happens, with the overall goal being to save their small town from being absorbed by the larger city nearby. And of course, quirky sunshine writer and grumpy scowly contractor hook up.

This book was messy and chaotic, and not in a good way. I freely admit I haven't read any of the author's other books, but from reading reviews here, the chaos is even a bit much for long time author fans. The pages drip humor, and while it was fun in the beginning, it got really old really fast when the author is cracking jokes mid-sex, both out loud and in narration. Speaking of the actual reason we’re all here reading this book, it took the two characters half the book (that's roughly 250 pages) for them to go on their first date, and that wasn’t even a date. For some more detailed information, (romance spoilers here) Cam agrees to a FWB situation with Hazel for research purposes, so for a large chunk of the book even past this point they still aren't really a couple. Lots of sex is had, of course, but there's zero relationship development or chemistry. Even the overall story propping up the romance feels lacking. I guess I expected more to happen in a book of this size.

Finally, with Hazel being a writer herself, there's multiple points of the book where it feels like the author is speaking directly to the reader, and all of it felt shoehorned in. Lots of statements about how Hazel feels like her writing is discounted because she writes romance and not literary fiction, some of what feels like insider baseball about how the publishing industry and writer events works, and even a whole chapter dedicated to Hazel giving another character pointers on how to get started writing. None of it felt like it helped the overall story along any.

Just not my thing, I guess.