⭐⭐⭐⭐
Heather Blackmore is an author we just cannot get enough of.
Her stories are beautifully thought-out and developed, her pacing is excellent
and most importantly, her MCs are girls we usually fall in love with (well, we
fall in love with at least one of her MCs in each book). Blackmore is
gifted in the way she develops relationships, creates and navigates through
complexes that the characters have and shows the interaction between the two
leading ladies. This one is a mixture of high-school coming-of-age,
popular-girl-awkward-new-girl, mystery, romance, slow burn, angst and HEA.
Cazz (Cassidy) Warner is the new, athletic, reticent girl.
Sarah Perkins is the rich, popular and surprising super-nice girl. With Sarah
putting in all the effort, Cass and Sarah develop a fairly good equation. However,
Cazz’s frequently-shifting-homes parents decide to move once again, and there is
very little Cazz can do or say about it. However, what she does is dumps Sarah very,
very cruelly. She ghosts her totally even when Sarah reaches out.
Ten years later, Cazz is assigned a fraud investigation at
Sarah’s charitable foundation. Inevitably the two meet. The warmth and
attraction are still there. Sarah is still going out of her way to be nice to
Cazz. Cazz is still unable to meet Sarah’s warmth. Yeah, we sound not-so-happy
with Cazz, but in the book, the author makes this a believable relationship.
There are some action sequences in the end during which Cazz
redeems herself but Sarah still comes up a bigger winner. Okay, we’ll quit
about our feeling of imbalance between the two because of the way Cazz dropped
Sarah early on.
In all fairness, this is a great book. All of Blackmore’s
books are great. She writes some of the best relationships, and this one
is also super. Definitely recommended.
