The Proposal

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I bought and read this book months ago because I love Jasmine Guillory's books, but this one wasn't my favorite. It was mostly good, and there were parts I really liked, but what stands out most in my head is the scene where (slight spoiler ahead) Carlos tells Nik he loves her, she freaks out because she's in dire need of some therapy to work out her issues, and then--what drove me nuts--she uses the word "care" in the way that men use that word, and he responds to her use of the word in the way that women respond to it, which is to say, Not Well. I'm all in favor of gender-flipping things usually, but that part had me arguing with the book out loud, and months later that is what I remember most. I may need to re-read the book to remind myself of the rest of the story.

For readers' advisors: some steamy sex scenes and a fair amount of swearing.  One person (who deserves it!) gets punched.  Two secondary female characters meet & begin falling in love. Trigger warning: discussion of domestic abuse, specifically emotional abuse.

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Evvie Drake Starts Over

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Evvie Drake's husband died as she was packing up to leave him, and a year later everyone still mistakes her trauma for grief. The truth is, their golden boy was actually emotionally abusive, and now that he's gone, she simply doesn't know what to do next. But no one, not even her best friend Andy, knows the truth. She's got baggage. And bills. Lots of them. So when Andy asks her to rent the apartment off the back of her kitchen to his friend Dean, who used to be a famous pitcher until he inexplicably lost the ability to throw a baseball where he wanted it to go, she agrees. Over the course of the next year, Evvie and Dean grow from acquaintances to friends to lovers, but they each have so much healing to do, can they move forward together?

I stayed up past my bedtime to finish this novel. I didn't want to put it down until Evvie got the therapy she needed and Dean figured out what direction he wanted his life to take now. I loved that the author didn't write easy, magical fixes, and that the romance was slow build. Since I would categorize this book as Relationship Fiction--Evvie's relationships of all kinds were important to the story--I was afraid for a while that Evvie and Dean would permanently go their separate ways.

For readers' advisors: character doorway is primary, story secondary. There are swear words sprinkled throughout and some alcohol consumption, but no violence, and the sex scenes are fade-to-black. Evvie is a survivor of emotional abuse (constant gaslighting and some social isolation), so that might be a trigger for some readers, though it's all in the past, as the perpetrator dies in the first chapter.

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