Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsThe Lemon Sisters
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2019
When Brooke's older sister, Mindy, shows up on her doorstep with her three children and looking like she's about to breakdown, there's nothing for Brooke to do but step in and offer help. This offer of help leads Brooke back to Wildstone, a place she left seven years ago with barely a glance back. But things in Brooke's life have been not feeling quite right not since an on-the-job accident nearly took Brooke's life. Much like Mindy, Brooke knows something has to change and she figures going back home will start her on the path to healing and moving forward.
When she runs into her former love Garrett, Brooke begins to realize that moving on may be harder than she previously thought. But facing the past will come with revelations in love and in sisterhood.
For me, The Lemon Sisters was a perfect stay-up-all-night second-chance romance. I'm a sucker for the second chance romances and Jill Shalvis certainly delivered. The chemistry and attraction between Brooke and Garrett just leaps off the page and I found myself feeling giddy with every interaction they had. I really liked the way Jill Shalvis slowly builds up the past hurts and issues between them, but with the realization that it doesn't matter as much because the feelings they have for each other are still there. Despite the feelings, however, is the fact that they do have to work through the issues before they can happily move on. Brooke's leaving hurt Garrett on a fundamental level which brings up things in his past that he hasn't yet fully dealt with either.
On a more secondary level, but nonetheless still important, we have Mindy Lemon and the problems she's facing being a working mother of three with a doctor husband who is at the practice more than he's home leaving Mindy with the task of doing everything else. It's daunting and exhausting and an issue that many mothers face: the imbalance of the home life. For Mindy, she's at her breaking point, but other than that, it causes her to take a look at the life she currently has and question whether or not it's still what she wants in the way she wants it. I felt like Mindy and Linc's (her husband) story takes more of the background regardless of Mindy getting her own Points of View within the book, but I wished we got a little more depth to their relationship. I felt like we were almost there, but could have gone a little deeper in terms of how Mindy and Linc come to terms with the changing dynamic of their marriage and what they plan to do about it in order to stay happily married, or on the other hand if not being married would be the solution.
Mainly, I felt like this book was more self-contained than the previous two books. It took place in Wildstone, but there was very little interaction with those outside of the quartet of Brooke, Garrett, Mindy, and Linc. Whereas I felt like the previous two books relied a little more on community interaction. I think it's because each character is from Wildstone originally. They're already familiar with the land and the area, the people to a certain extent, so the focus is placed more internally with the issues that the group have to come to terms with either individually or with each other - as is the case with Brooke and Garrett, and Brooke and Mindy, and Mindy and Linc respectively.
So far, I think this one is my favorite of the Wildstone series. It stands perfectly well on its own so if you start with the Lemon Sisters you should be fine.
