Review: The Perfect Match by Kristan Higgins

The Perfect Match by Kristan Higgins: Honor Holland is thirty five and can hear her eggs dying off one by one. She has been pining after Brogan for years but he really sees her as a good friend rather than a love interest and Honor suddenly comes to terms with that fact and realizes she has wasted too many good years pursing Brogan. Tom Barlow is an Englishman who wants to continue to live in the US to be near Charlie, the young son of his dead fiance. When he loses his work visa, he starts to look for someone to marry in an effort to get a green card. Tom and Honor are thrown together and this relationship of convenience starts to have meaning for both of them.

Honor is the "good girl" of the Holland family. She expertly runs the business side of the family vineyard, Blue Heron and even volunteers at the local assisted living facility. As she watches the rest of the family, however, find happiness in their lives she is more and more aware of how alone she is without someone to share her life. This perfectly primes her to take a chance with Tom even though she is not immediately charmed by him. Tom is also unsure about Honor and a marraige of covenience but he cares so much for Charlie, he is willing to do anything to stay near him. The more time Tom and Honor spend together as they get ready for their wedding, the more attracted they become to each other.  They begin to allow themselves to see their future less as a business transaction and more as a partnership with real passion.   Of course, the path from transaction to passion is not a straight line and Tom and Honor's fledgling relationship alternates between moments of real happiness and moments of frustration and doubt.

My Thoughts
Since reading My One and Only (my review), I have been a fan of Kristan Higgins - this is the third book of hers that I have read (review of Somebody to Love). Each of her books features a strong female protagonist with a crisis of the heart.  Her writing is witty, especially in the scenes with her self-deprecating heroine, which ups my enjoyment of the books.

At times, in this book, I got a little frustrated with the on-again, off-again nature of Tom and Honor's relationship.  I guess it is realistic considering the premise of their marriage of convenience but still found myself wanting to take the two of them and shake them!

The Perfect Match is the second book in the Blue Heron series - although you don't have to have read the first to follow this one (I have not read the first book yet) because each book seems to feature a member of the Holland family so they can really stand alone while those that enjoy the supporting characters in a book can read more about one of them in another book in the series.  Which brings me to perhaps my favorite element of this book - the Holland family.  They are a large, diverse but close-knit family and I found the scenes which included them were among my favorites.  I will definitely be going back to read the first in the series and anxiously await book 3 to visit more with the Holland family!

I received an e-galley of this book from Netgalley

Book Review: First You Try Everything by Jane McCafferty

In First You Try Everything we look inside the marriage of Ben and Evvie and see a deteriorated union in which Ben and Evvie have grown apart even though Evvie is now clinging desperately to their marriage. Despite all signs to the contrary, Evvie believes their marriage is salvageable and she is determined to do everything in her power to hold on to Ben. But their marriage is built on an unsteady foundation - both Ben and Evvie come from troubled childhoods and are somewhat broken - the resulting cracks begin to show themselves as their marriage unravels. Evvie pushes herself and Ben to dangerous lengths in trying to save their marriage - "First You Try Everything" goes way beyond how most couples endeavor to save their marriage.

Evvie and Ben met in college and married young - their early relationship is marked by their need to be together to the exclusion of others. They are one of those couples with only eyes for each other to the point where they are isolated from friends and family - they only need each other. Perhaps their difficult childhoods draw them together and drive them to seek solace in each other. Both Evvie and Ben are passionate about their ideals as a young married couple. Ben eschews the tyranny of a 9-5 job and corporate attire while Evvie protests the mistreatment of animals and refuses to eat meat.

When we meet them at the beginning of the book, however, they are a couple in middle age who have been through the trials of life including a struggle with infertility. Ben has definitely grown away from his ideal young self and finds he is drawn to convention, even energized by being part of the hustle and bustle of rush hour enroute to work in his suit. He is frustrated by the fact that Evvie clings to him and in his eyes, she has evolved little since their early days together. Meanwhile, Evvie is relatively unchanged and her passion and idealism has even taken on a tinge of obsession. She seems to hang onto her old self very desperately and the more Ben pulls away the more Evvie tries to reclaim who she was and what they had. Evvie is unraveling and her judgement is clearly compromised.  

My Thoughts
At the start of this book, I was unsure about it - I had trouble relating to Ben and Evvie and their entire lives, from the dull gray of the Pittsburgh sky to their ordinary, unhappy lives, seemed grim. But as the story progressed, told alternately from Ben and Evvie's perspectives, I became drawn in by their complex, flawed characters. The author does an excellent job of building these characters from their troubled childhoods to their complicated adulthood so that although I really couldn't relate to them I did become fascinated by them. Both Evvie and Ben are flawed and I found there was no obvious "bad guy" in this relationship - despite Evvie's becoming unhinged, Ben tempers his frustration with compassion. In much the same way, Evvie tries to understand Ben's distance. In addition to the character development, the writing is beautiful and I found myself struck by many passages. If you are looking for a psychological journey into a marriage with a complex husband and wife, I recommend this novel.

I reviewed this book as part of TLC Tours - you can check out the reviews of others on the tour here. The book seems to have elicited strong reactions so I encourage you to check out the reviews!

 I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review