Review: With Neighbors Like This

With Neighbors Like This by Tracy Goodwin
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 78%.

Amelia Marsh's husband left her for another woman and ghosted her and their two children. She has made a new start and moved to her hometown of Houston, closer to her friends. Unfortunately they have barely moved in before she falls foul of the Home-Owner's Association representative Carla, who objects to the family garden gnome being in the front garden. Little does Carla know that Amelia's children lovingly painted that gnome for her for mother's day and it was their only request when relocating to Houston that the gnome took pride of place in the garden. Unfortunately Carla takes great joy in throwing her weight around and issuing violation notices like confetti, but she's picked on the wrong mom this time! So far, so good, I especially liked Amelia's tactics of killing Carla with kindness and 'bless your heart'ing her to oblivion. True Southern woman revenge.

All this takes place at the community Easter Egg hunt, when Amelia's children have their photo taken with the Easter bunny, Amelia forms a bond with the guy wearing the bunny costume. He's devastatingly handsome and charming with a wicked sense of humour, unfortunately he also turns out to be the HOA President, Kyle Sanders. Amelia isn't going to let a pesky thing like animal attraction detract her from winning her battle with the HOA and bringing down Carla. Moreover, after a humiliating and messy divorce she doesn't want to bring anyone into her children's lives who might break their hearts again.

Kyle is madly attracted to his sassy new neighbour, even if she is threatening to challenge the HOA rules and make his life harder, but he vowed not to get involved with women with children so they will have to remain friends, or at least frenemies.

See, all this sounds great, a bit of enemies to lovers, a viciously polite war with the HOA, sassy dialogue and I'm all-in. Unfortunately, that all seemed to die out pretty quickly. Amelia was that impossible paragon of motherhood who can hold down a full-time job, bring up two small children single-handedly, and organise Easter Egg hunts for her friends' children whilst also creating an adults Easter hunt together with hand-made gift baskets for her friends (I think I threw-up in my mouth a little bit). Similarly, Kyle runs his own construction business yet also acts as President of the HOA, dresses up as the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas, kills wasps nests in the children's playground, etc, etc. But of course they are both too committed to their high-falutin' ideals to give in to their feelings, so they keep almost kissing, then friendzoning each other. The dastardly plans to confound Carla deteriorate and I just got bored. So, even though I was so close to the end, I couldn't bring myself to invest another 45 minutes in this book. If anyone finishes it and tells me that there is a brilliant scene where Carla is totally humiliated and gets the takedown she deserves then I might force myself to read the rest but at the moment it feels like it's all going to be a bit of a damp squib.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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