Choosing Happy
Samatha Harris
(Madison Square, #2)
Published by: Limitless Publishing
Publication date: September 20th 2016
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Madison Buchanan’s life has imploded…
Her husband left her for his nineteen-year-old intern, leaving her alone and faced with starting over in her forties. With the help of her feisty best friend, Madison reinvents herself, armed with a new look and open to new possibilities.
Sean Taylor is gorgeous, fun, and young—very young…
He hasn’t had the best of luck. Sean’s track record with women is less than stellar, but when he walks into The Den one day, he just can’t help but be captivated by a dark haired beauty with the sad eyes and killer legs. She’s a little older, but he doesn’t discriminate. More than anything, he wants to be the one to make her smile.
Sean personifies the only thing that has eluded Madison all of her life—joy…
It was meant to be a fling, something fun, with no strings and zero drama, but Sean wants something more, and Madison is just not ready. She’s lived by the rules her family, her friends, even her boss have laid out for her, but her new life is not what she expected. Being with Sean opens feelings she never thought she’d experience.
The the demands of her family and her job throw her boring, simple life into chaos, and Sean is no exception…
Madison is left with a choice. Give in to the expectations of the world around her—or choose to follow her heart and be happy.
But choosing happy is so much harder than it seems.
Review:
A forty-something heroine–yay! The romance world could definitely use a few more of them, in my completely unbiased opinion. 😉
I really enjoyed Sean and Madison together, and loved the story’s theme of “choosing happy” for yourself. It seemed like Sean might have been a bit of a player in the past, but he converted pretty quick to a one-woman man here and I liked that version of him. I might have needed more convincing if I’d seen him in book one ( Somewhere in Between ), but since it’s still sitting in my TBR pile, that wasn’t an issue.
Madison needed to find herself again after losing much of who she was to a dead-end relationship, and it wasn’t easy. I definitely felt for her, having to reboot her personal life after so many years as a married woman. I wasn’t always too crazy about the advice Madison’s BFF Margot gave her, especially when it caused her to do a 180 on Sean and their relationship, which it did more than once (and then she did a 180 on it at the end, out of nowhere–yeah, not a Margot fan, even though that time worked in our H/h’s favor). I spent a lot of the book waiting for Madison to stop listening to what everyone else wanted her/expected her to do and start living for herself, and was just as frustrated as Sean at times. There were parts of the story where he almost seemed like the older one of the two.
I’m always interested to see how an author manages to make the older woman/younger man dynamic work–it can be a tricky combo to pull off. This one had an interesting twist to it (that I probably should have seen coming, but didn’t) and I’m still not sure quite how I feel about it…on one level it wasn’t too far out there, but the particular role that twist had in helping them along to their HEA felt a little too convenient in the end. Though perhaps Emily (Sean’s sister) will have a future series book and make me believe in the apparent change in character that “the twist” underwent from the past to the present.
This was second in the series, but worked fine as a standalone. Choosing Happy was my first from this author–but probably not my last. I looked up and added book one in the series to my TBR before I was even a third of the way through this one.
Rating: 3 1/2 stars / B
I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.
Book 1 in the series:
Author Bio:
Samatha “Sam” Harris lives near Baltimore, Maryland with her husband David and daughter Ava. Born in Florida, she migrated north which most people agree was a little backwards. She has been an artist all of her life, a Tattoo Artist for more than ten years, and a storyteller since she was a kid.
Sam has a slightly unhealthy love for Frank Sinatra, classic movies, and Jazz and Blues music, but her first love will always be reading. From Romance, to Thrillers, to Historical Fiction and everything in between, she loves to become a part of the story. As a writer she tells the stories that she would want to read.
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I liked the review, thank you. Sounds like a good read.
Love the older woman younger man concept.
Me too 🙂
Great Review Looks like a great book Thanks for sharing