Review: Dolly All the Time

Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dolly Brick is a hard-working single mother. She's a teacher, an Uber driver, and the telephone answer service for a sporting goods company. Called back to her hometown of Whitfield, Rhode Island to help her father after their family home was damaged by fire, Dolly is horrified to discover that their roof is unsafe and will cost thousands of dollars to repair - money that neither she nor her father have.

Then providence shines on her. After delivering a vast quantity of shrimp to the Whitfield estate (for cocktail hour), Dolly is cycling back home when she encounters Stewart Whitfield, handsome oldest son of the family that founded the town, beside a car with a flat tyre and no phone battery. Laughing at the uselessness of the wealthy who have no idea how to change a tyre, Dolly kindly helps him out.

Later it turns out that Stewart's girlfriend has been caught publicly cheating on him with a baseball player. A paparazzi photographer has snapped a picture of Dolly changing Stewart's tyre and the Whitfield publicist has spun it as him teaching his new girlfriend to change a tyre. Stewart desperately wants to be appointed head of the family business but his family are concerned that he's a workaholic and so he suggests that he and Dolly fake-date. It will stop all the bad publicity about not being able to keep a girlfriend and appease his family.

This is like a jam-up between Mystic Pizza and Pretty Woman (and probably lots more). Its very familiar, fake dating, small-town, rich guy/poor girl, billionaire and the single mom territory. Yachts, black-tie dinners, fancy apartments, money-no-object romance with cute kids, and home renovation.

I really enjoyed it and would have given it a higher rating if it wasn't for the fact that it felt just a little bit too familiar. Not sure if it was the storyline , or Stewart's character, but I just felt like I'd read something very similar before.

Nevertheless, great summer romance reading.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: A Yorkshire Affair: The BRAND NEW feel-good Yorkshire romance about taking chances and following your heart

A Yorkshire Affair: The BRAND NEW feel-good Yorkshire romance about taking chances and following your heart by Julie Houston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The third book in the series features (more on that later) Jess Allen, who gave up a place at university and a potential career as a chef to marry her high school sweetheart Dean after she got pregnant. Always afraid of change, Jess has stuck by her philandering husband, lives next door to her mother Alice and younger sister Sorrel, and is content working at the local care home.

However, recently things have started to change. Jess won a local bakery contest and has been given the opportunity to go into partnership with her soon-to-be brother-in-law Fabian and Kamran Sattar a local businessman (who also happens to be her mum's new boyfriend) in Beddingfield's stylish new restaurant, The White House. Alice is moving in with Kamran, Sorrel is moving to London for school, and Jess is giving up her job at the care home.

Things are taking a turn on the romantic front as well, Jess kicks out Dean, and meets the handsome, wealthy father of her daughter's new BFF.

I've noted this before in these interlinked series, at some point continuing the strains of multiple couples and storylines becomes horrifically confused and all the stories become superficial - that is what happened here. We have updates to Jess's sister Sorrel's career and romance with Joel, the local bad boy, updates to Jess' sister Robyn's struggles to keep the local school open, updates to Robyn's partner Fabian's career as a barrister, updates to Joel's court case, updates to Alice's love life. The story also adds a further level of confusion by introducing

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