Disappearing Between the Pages of a Summer Romance

How often do you sit down and read a book from cover to cover without doing anything else besides taking a pee break or foraging your pantry for more snacks?

Hardly ever, right? Who has time for that? We all have task lists as long as the Canada-USA border. We can’t just disappear from our busy lives to read a book.

Well, sometimes, I do.

People can try to shame me or make me feel guilty with their “Wow! Must be nice to do absolutely nothing.” And guess what? I don’t care. It is nice. I finally finished the big-girl quilt for my granddaughter’s birthday present (it took me a year) and I had a time to relax for a few minutes. I’m living my life how I want to, because we will ALL be dead soon (sorry to break that news to you), so why not spend my time the way I want to.

Last week, I was supposed to be on vacation from work. Didn’t happen. I worked a 50-hour work week due to a major client’s request for RUSH projects that needed to be done because there would be a stop-work order, and 50 other people would have nothing to do on a construction site unless I completed my work first. That’s a problem. One that I could fix. So, I pushed my vacation to the following week. That didn’t happen either. Same reason. Same fix.

So, when I finally dragged my butt into the house on Friday afternoon, I picked up a book and never looked back. I immersed myself between the pages and fell into the lives of fictitious people with whom I wanted to be friends with.

In the new release, SUMMER ROMANCE by Annabel Monaghan, I found a second chance romance between a newly single mother (with three kids ranging between six to twelve years old, negotiating a divorce with a selfish dick husband, and struggling with the loss of her mother) and a big city lawyer named Scooter (who has a small-town family that continues to be embarrassed about him being a difficult teen who got into shitloads of trouble and all he wanted to do was skateboard and never grow up). This might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I was once a single mom with three preteens, wondering if there would ever be a second chance at romance for me, so it was quite relatable. I loved it!

The hilarious story starts with Ali’s dog peeing on Scooter’s shoe in the dog park. It had me smiling from the moment the book started until I read the final pages. The amazing part is there were so many subplots you might think it would be confusing, but no, it was an easy beach read. The kind of book that takes away all my work stress away. The kind of book that shoves me into a feel-good-kind-of-day. There were moments of pull-on-your-heart-strings sadness, moments of seventh grade mean girl awkwardness, moments of wanting to slap someone for being so narcissistic, moments of love-making, moments of tranquility while watching the waves rush up the sandy beach, moments of friendship, moments of being a dog lover, moments of caring for others who aren’t your family, and moments of being such a good person when you don’t have to.

These are the feel-good things I love to read about when I am stressed out the wazoo.
I became a fan of Annabel Monaghan when I read her debut, NORA GOES OFF SCRIPT, and since then, she has become a pre-order kind of author for me. She makes me laugh and swoon over new book boyfriends, and I forget about everything else on my To Do List. Sometimes, this is precisely what I need to recharge for the chaotic work stress of next week. Basically, my life is a roller coaster of high stress moments and low feel-good moments, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So, if you are searching for a fun beach read, and want to disappear between the pages of a fun emotional book, then you might want to add this novel to your list. Of course, now I’m wondering, have you ever had a summer romance? How did that work out for you?