I have been seen so much about Tammy Falkner's books that I couldn't wait to try one out. People seem to love her books, and I hadn't read any yet but Feels like Summertime really sold me with it's blurb. I liked this one, but if I am honest I didn't love it. I was a little disappointed with it, but that is probably due to how much hype I have seen with her books and my expectations were probably a bit too high. This one was cute and sweet, and I think a lot of contemporary fans will really love it.
Katie and Jake met as teenagers at Lake Fisher, but after their summer together they never saw each other again. Jake is back at Lake Fisher eighteen years later after his life falls apart and his dad has a stroke. Katie is looking for a place to lie low after her life also falls apart, and returns to Lake Fisher where they meet back up. Though a lot has changed, both Katie and Jake find themselves drawn to one another yet again. But this time around there are a lot more obstacles, and while Jake is willing to open up to Katie, she finds herself struggling to let him in. Can Jake show Katie that they belong together once and for all and get her to let him in before it is too late, or will she shut him out and lose a chance at a happy ending?
I liked both Katie and Jake. That wasn't the part of the book I struggled with. They were cute together and I liked their sweetness. They had really cared about one another and though they had moved forward with their lives, they never forgot one another. It was clear that they connected emotionally as well as physically. I found myself getting a bit distracted though by the flashbacks, and the constant switching between past and present. While that can work for me at times and I enjoyed getting to see how they first met and the present, it didn't fully work for me here.
I also felt like the story had some pretty major holes in the plot here, and that kept me from being able to love this one. Things were slow moving at times, then rushed and abrupt at others. There were also things that were brought up and dropped out of nowhere and then reintroduced a lot later in the story. It just felt kind of choppy and not 100% put together if that makes sense. The reader was left for quite a bit of this book trying to figure out what was going on with the men of Katie's past (after Jake), and while I am all for a bit of mystery at times, it dragged on longer than I would have liked here and I started to lose interest. I finished the book because the writer is talented and the characters were likable, but honestly I felt like I was finishing in spite of the actual story going on. I really wanted to love this story as it had so much promise, but unfortunately it all just felt kind of meh to me and I wasn't thrilled with the direction this one took. I will read more from Tammy Falkner in the future as I am sure that she is a good writer seeing how many people love her books. Maybe this one just wasn't the best for me to start with.
**ARC Provided by Publisher**
