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New Release and Review: Kristan Higgins’s The Perfect Match (Books two in the Blue Heron series)

 

Title: The Perfect Match
Author: Kristan Higgins
Series: Blue Heron
Genre: Contemporary romance
Published: 2013
Pages: 441
Format read: audio
Rating: A-

What if the perfect match is a perfect surprise? 

Honor Holland has just been unceremoniously rejected by her lifelong crush. And now—a mere three weeks later—Mr. Perfect is engaged to her best friend. But resilient, reliable Honor is going to pick herself up, dust herself off and get back out there… or she would if dating in Manningsport, New York, population 715, wasn’t easier said than done.

Charming, handsome British professor Tom Barlow just wants to do right by his unofficial stepson, Charlie, but his visa is about to expire. Now Tom must either get a green card or leave the States—and leave Charlie behind.

In a moment of impulsiveness, Honor agrees to help Tom with a marriage of convenience—and make her ex jealous in the process. But juggling a fiancé, hiding out from her former best friend and managing her job at the family vineyard isn’t easy. And as sparks start to fly between Honor and Tom, they might discover that their pretend relationship is far too perfect to be anything but true love….

Review:

The Perfect Match is without question a Kristan Higgins novel. Her quirky sense of humor shines throughout, and it’s rife with the fun characters her novels are known for. Individually, I loved both Honor and Tom, and Charlie just broke my heart throughout the whole novel.

The only problem? It felt like Honor and Tom weren’t together nearly enough for much of the book. For the first two-thirds or so, I felt a bit “meh” about them as a couple. Oh, they each thought about how attractive they found the other and they did share a few moments, but it wasn’t until the last third of the book that I really started to believe in their love story.

Part of this might have been the narrator as well–her version of Tom’s accent just didn’t quite do it for me. Now if Tom Hardy, Kristan’s inspiration for his character, had been available…well, that would have been a whole different story then, surely 😉

Once Kristan Higgins decides to “bring it”, though, she goes all out!

The last third of the novel really put me through the emotional wringer. I lost track of the number of times I felt myself getting teary, and I became totally unwilling to stop listening, especially for insignificant reasons like sleeping, showering, and conversing with the kids. (Just kidding, Mini Moes. Kind of.) The last third reminded me why Ms. Higgins is on my auto-buy list. Stick with this one, and you won’t be disappointed!

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I still went out an bought the audio, though–because I’m weird like that.

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