Everything But A Bride Holly Jacobs Release Date: June 1, 2008 Publisher: Montlake Romance Contemporary Romance Book #2 in the Everything But…series Number of Pages: 192 Kindle Edition Source: Kindle Lending Library Rating: G Read 2/23/17 to 2/24/17
Given the subject matter (a broken engagement) this book is a lot more light-hearted than I thought it would be. It’s a super-fast and kind of fluffy read. Perfect for a day at the beach or a snow day in front of the fire.
The story of Noah and Callie did not go the way I expected. I was really glad that it wasn’t a case of Callie having a crush on Noah her whole life with him not even noticing her until he was single. Instead it was a mutual discovery of feelings. A mutual realization of how well they mesh and all of a sudden seeing each other as something as more than friends.
Noah is definitely a man of action. Once he makes a decision there is no stopping him! Another surprise in this story is that he was the worker-bee in the relationship. Callie and Noah may have had their realizations at the same time, but Noah is the one that accepted that realization first. I like that he guides Callie more than putting pressure on her.
Callie is a girl after my own heart. She hates messing with her hair, doesn’t wear make-up, is not a fan of shopping…yet she worries these things about her personality are the things holding men back from committing to her. Like she’s somehow less of a woman because she isn’t interested in the traditional girly things.
There were some pop culture references that weren’t very current. I had to look at the publication date while reading because it confused me. There were references to some of my favorite shows from the 80’s…Moonlighting, Mork & Mindy, Cheers. I don’t think a lot of readers who are younger than 40 will get these references so it seemed like an odd choice for a book that was published in 2008. But that’s really neither here nor there.
As with the first story in this series, I was missing that warm-fuzzy feeling. And just like in the previous book, I like the characters and I believe they belong together. I really enjoyed the story. There’s just a spark that’s missing. I think in this case it was a bit too much telling and not enough showing.
