Favourite Reads

And still with the Emma Scott love, another book of hers I adored.

I can’t seem to get enough of Emma Scott’s books since I rediscovered her and this is her most recent release.

Forever Right Now by Emma Scott

We first met Darlene Montgomery in The Butterfly Project.  She was the best friend of the hero and though she was bubbly and effervescent, she had some deep issues she tried to medicate with drugs.  She’d been drug free for a while but relapsed so I was delighted to see this book is her story.  When last we met her, she was in a relationship and doing her best to stay off drugs.  It’s now a year later and the relationship she was in didn’t work out.  While she was upset it didn’t, it didn’t trigger a return to drugs.  She’s been drug free for a while now and is ready to make big changes in her life.  The first and biggest is moving to San Francisco.  She gets a squeal of a deal on a sublet, has taken a course in massage therapy and landed a fairly good paying job at a swanky spa.  And most of all, she’s ready to start dancing again.  She hasn’t really since drugs stole dancing from her.  Everything is looking good – at least until she meets her new neighbour Sawyer Haas.  To put it politely, he’s a grump.  Darlene sees sparks of a different kind of guy when he interacts with his adorable daughter, but other than that, he’s Mr. Unfriendly.

But because Darlene is who she is, with her sparkling personality isn’t going to let a little thing like that stop her so she slowly but surely wiggles her way into his life.

I think this one might be my favourite Emma Scott book yet and that’s saying quite a bits as I’ve adored all the books I’ve read so far.  Going in I already loved Darlene and because we’re ‘met’ her, was ready to cheer her on right from the get go.  She’s so loaded with personality that she’s a joy to read.  Although she’s an addict, she figures she’s got it beat.  Her new sponsor Max, another great and colourful character warns her that she’s not quite seeing the whole picture of an addict but Doreen assures him she’s good.  The reader of course, knows she’s in for a fall and I almost had my fingers crossed that she wouldn’t go back to drugs like she had previously.  I’m not going to say whether she does or not – mean of me I know.

And Sawyer.  What a fascinating and 100% wonderful guy he is.   He has a lot of balls in the air and he’s stressed to the limit.  He’s in the final stages of getting his law degree and he has a great job lined up – as long as he passes the bar.  It’s helpful that he has an eidetic memory.  That’s the kind where you remember everything you learn.  Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory has that kind.  But law school is just part of his stressors.  He’s also a single father with sole custody of his very young daughter and he’s trying to make do financially on just the money from a scholarship. 

In his previous life, he was one Wild and Crazy Guy.  He and his roommates lived in party central and being young and attractive with a great future, finding willing young women was never a problem.  But that life style ended up abruptly when a one night stand came to visit carrying a baby, said it was his and took off, in the middle of one of his epic parties even..  Being a stand-up guy, Sawyer changed his life style completely and now is a totally womanless, stressed student and simply wonderful single father who would do anything for his daughter, It’s impossible not to love him to pieces and want to jump in and help him.  And that’s what Doreen tries to do but he does make it very hard for her.  And I can’t finish this review without giving big thumbs up to his daughter, Olivia.  Ms. Scott has even infused her with an adorable little personality.  Most of the time I’m meh about kids in romance but in this case, Livie was just as wonderfully done as every other character.

There is a brief appearance of Beckett and Zelda from The Butterfly Project but this book works just fine as a standalone.

With a wonderful story and a most excellent price there is no reason not to give this one a try.  I almost 100% guarantee you will fall in love with it too.

 

Outline: Outline: Darlene Montgomery has been to hell and back…more than once. After a stint in jail for drug possession, she is finally clean and ready to start over. Yet another failed relationship is just the motivation she needs to move from New York to San Francisco with the hopes of resurrecting her dance career and discovering that she is more than the sum of her rap sheet. As Darlene struggles in her new city, the last thing she wants is to become entangled with her handsome—but cranky—neighbor and his adorable little girl...

Sawyer Haas is weeks away from finishing law school, but exhaustion, dwindling finances, and the pressure to provide for himself and his daughter, Olivia, are wearing him down. A federal clerkship--a job he desperately needs--awaits him after graduation, but only if he passes the Bar Exam. Sawyer doesn’t have the time or patience for the capricious—if beautiful—dancer who moves into the apartment above his. But Darlene’s easy laugh and cheerful spirit seep into the cracks of his hardened heart, and slowly break down the walls he’s resurrected to keep from being betrayed ever again.

When the parents of Olivia’s absentee mother come to fight for custody, Sawyer could lose everything. To have any chance at happiness, he must trust Darlene, the woman who has somehow found her way past his brittle barbs, and Darlene must decide how much of her own bruised heart she is willing to give to Sawyer and Olivia, especially when the ghosts of her troubled past refuse to stay buried.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5