This is a day late, but enjoy!
Title: Wait for It
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publication Date: August 10th, 2021
Ratings: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75
Goodreads Summary:
A woman looking for a new lease on life moves to Arizona where she rents a guest house on a gorgeous property with a mysterious owner–a man who teaches her about resilience, courage, and ultimately true love, in this funny, bighearted novel about hope and healing from New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay.
Stuck in a dreary Boston winter, Annabelle Martin would like nothing more than to run away from her current life. She’s not even thirty years old, twice-divorced, and has just dodged a marriage proposal… from her ex-husband. When she’s offered her dream job as creative director at a cutting-edge graphic design studio in Phoenix, she jumps at the opportunity to start over.
When she arrives in the Valley of the Sun, Annabelle is instantly intrigued by her anonymous landlord. Based on the cranky, handwritten notes Nick Daire leaves her, she assumes he is an old, rich curmudgeon. Annabelle is shocked when she finally meets Nick and discovers that he’s her age and uses a wheelchair. Nick suffered from a stroke a year ago, and while there’s no physical reason for him not to recover, he is struggling to overcome the paralyzing fear that has kept him a prisoner in his own home.
Despite her promise to herself not to get involved, Annabelle finds herself irresistibly drawn to Nick. And soon she wonders if she and Nick might help each other find the courage to embrace life, happiness, and true love.
I enjoyed this much more than I thought. Annabelle moves to Arizona to work at her friend’s company on a six-month trial basis and while she’s there, she stays in the guest house of a reclusive millionaire.
I was so glad when I learned this was dual point-of-view—the smartest thing the author could do for this story. Annabelle was a flighty and creative main character and it was a joy to read from her perspective, especially when she thought Nick was an old man and not a man in his 30’s—even though he was grumpy enough to be an old man. Their rapport back and forth was fun and flirty through clever notes back and forth. They don’t even meet face to face until close to halfway through the novel, but you can already feel their chemistry.
Annabelle and Nick were able to relate to each other in ways you wouldn’t expect through there past experiences—feelings of shame and inadequacy. I liked that they didn’t rely on the relationship to fix the issues they were dealing with personally. A lot of romance novels have their characters—especially the female—heavily rely on the love interest to fix everything for them instead of letting them be able to stand on their own two feet
I felt that there were a few plot lines that got dropped during the novel and then hastily tried to come back together again at the climax. I would have enjoyed to see more of Nick’s sister Lexi—she was a great character with not enough screen time. My biggest pet peeve was the ending. Really the last two pages—a major eye roll.
ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Lindsay Glenne 