REVIEW: Lips Like Sugar by Jess K Hardy

 

OUR REVIEW:

I found Jess K Hardy when I read Come As You Are and as soon as I saw Lips Like Sugar I grabbed it like it was my job. I love everything about this series, but I especially love that our couples appear to be older adults. These aren't characters just starting out in life, in their early 20s trying to figure things out; no, these are people in their 40s or older and have *some* things figured out and are still figuring out other things...just like actual people. 

In this novel, we have Mira, a single mom + caretake to her mom + owner of a bakery, and Cole, dad to an adult daughter + famous drummer + owner of a music studio. Their meet cute is adorable but it's the relationship that follows that makes this novel impossible to put down. They get to know each other through in person dates and texting and phone calls so that when they go to their friends' wedding, them dating will seem believable. Their chemistry is palpable and the way they interact at the wedding, and other dates, just screams that they should be together in real life. 

Both Mira and Cole bring some issues to this potential relationship, which seems natural, considering their age and experiences. Mira has some serious abandonment issues, as does Cole--though they impact them in different ways. And while those issues could definitely ruin things between them, thankfully they have people in their lives that make them see how foolish it would be to let this happen. 

I hope there are more books in this series because it's quickly becoming one of my favorites; if you haven't tried it, pick it up today.

BUY IT: https://amzn.to/3QySOee

SYNOPSIS:

Fake Date. Real Feels.

Mira Harlow has finally lost it. Between running her bakery, parenting her 14-year-old son, and taking care of her mom, she’s a stretched-thin mess. But kissing a total—and totally gorgeous—stranger before begging him to be her date to the biggest wedding her small town has ever seen so her ex won’t think she doesn’t have one? That’s a whole new level of chaos, even for her.

The last thing Cole Sanderson expects when he drives into the ski town of Red Falls, Montana is to score a date to his best friend’s wedding. But since his ex-rocker life in Seattle is stagnating, when the gorgeous, green-eyed bakery owner propositions him to play the role of her long-distance boyfriend, stirring his punk-shenanigans roots to their core, he doesn’t hesitate to say, “Hell yes!”

Mira hopes for a fun night with her fake date, but when their wedding weekend turns into a genuine connection, when Cole returns to Seattle and she tries to go back to her normal life, she wonders if she missed out on something real. But Cole isn’t done with her yet, and when he finds his way back to Red Falls, she’ll have to decide what’s more important: clinging to the neat and tidy life she’s struggled to maintain, or taking a risk, embracing the chaos, and maybe even falling in love.

Lips Like Sugar is book 2 in the Bluebird Basin Romance series but can absolutely be read as a standalone. This story features two main characters in their fifties, lots of laughs, plenty of open-door steam, and so many butterflies.