Always on My Mind by Jill Shalvis

Grade: B
Hotness Level: Inferno
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Contemporary

Published: 9/24/13
Reviewed by Anne

254 pages

 

Leah feels like a failure after messing up at pastry school and on a reality cooking show.  She spending the agonizing time until the show's finale in Lucky Harbor, her home town, running her Grandma's bakery.  Her best friend Jack is there for her as always.  When the idea that Jack and Leah might be dating cheers up Jack's mother - who is fighting cancer - Leah runs with the story saying she ad Jack are going out.  Jack plays along and, much to the amusement of everyone else, pretending to date leads to actual dating and falling in love.

 

Jill Shalvis is an amazingly dependable writer!  This is another great story.  There's tons of humor, along with the Lucky Harbor cast we know and love.  I think this book would stand on it's own just fine, though.

Leah is a pretty damaged heroine - well, her self esteem is damaged due to her father's emotional abuse while she was growing up.  I would have felt better if she'd started seeing a therapist during the course of the story - she's really got issues!  Jack had his own problems, but they never seemed as big as hers.

I loved the set up with the two of them fake dating to give Jack's mom a little boost.  Everything about that was funny.  The ending was a little over the top, but it didn't ruin anything, and it left me wanting to know a lot more about Ben and Aubrey!