Book Review #bookreview #contemporaryromance #enemiestolovers #friendstolovers #michelelenard #willfullymaliciousintent
This was a really fun and engaging third installment into this series. I really love that Michele Lenard is taking popular tropes and utilizing them throughout each installment in entertaining ways. This story is a friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers and this romance really explores the history of the hero and heroine's relationship while paralleling it with present time. This is a fast paced, sweet and steamy, accessible and well balanced story of two people who learn to fall in and out of love with each other.
This story is about Jason and Harper, they are both lawyers, they are both headstrong, they have a past and they both are ready to move into the future because their friend circle has become much closer in sphere. Jason and Harper met each other in college where they slowly built a friendship that turned into friends with benefits and grew into something much stronger. But a misunderstanding and the lack of trust immediately destroys their fragile relationship. Now that their friends have married they must come to terms with their past and learn to tolerate each other in the future.
I am not normally a fan of a dual told timelines but I think that Michele Lenard balanced it well in this story. Lenard really shows the foundation of a relationship that Jason and Harper were building and that makes the heart break of their breakup that much stronger. Jason and Harper's really love story is back in college where they are both young and insecure and unsure, and I think that is why we spend a lot of time with them in that past. Lenard does parallel moments from the present which project us into the past to give us a better understanding of where each of these people are coming from. Jason in his youth is extremely sweet and patient with Harper and I really loved watching him breakdown Harper's walls, but I has very saddened and disappointed with how he instigated their fall out. I think having their fall out in their past is the only way for it to truly work because we can forgive their ignorances because they are still growing and learning. When we are in present time Jason and Harper are learning to be in each others company again, to listen to each other, and learn to reopen their hearts and acknowledge that the love they were building is still there.
I would definitely recommend this book and this series if you love watching a group of friends find their love story and support each other. These novels are great, fast paced reads that are perfect to cozy up with, especially if you love a sweet and fairly low angst love story.