Zora Books Her Happy Ever After Review

 

ZORA BOOKS HER HAPPY EVER AFTER by Taj McCoy 

 

A heart-pounding, curvy romance about an indie bookstore owner who finds herself in a love triangle when she meets the author she's had a crush on for years...and his best friend. 

 Zora has committed every inch of her life to establishing her thriving DC bookstore, making it into a pillar of the community, and she just hasn’t had time for romance. But when a mystery author she’s been crushing on for years agrees to have an event at her store, she starts to rethink her priorities. 

Lawrence is every bit as charming as she imagined, even if his understanding of his own books seems just a bit shallow. When he asks her out after his reading, she’s almost elated enough to forget about the grumpy guy who sat next to her making snide comments all evening. Apparently the grouch is Lawrence’s best friend, Reid, but she can’t imagine what kind of friendship that must be. They couldn’t be more different. 

 But as she starts seeing Lawrence, and spending more and more time with Reid, Zora finds first impressions can be deceiving. Reid is smart and thoughtful—he’s also interested. After years of avoiding dating, she suddenly has two handsome men competing for her affection. But even as she struggles to choose between them, she can’t shake the feeling that they’re both hiding something—a mystery she’s determined to solve before she can find her HEA.

Pattie's Review:

While I enjoyed McCoy's first book Savvy Sheldon Feels Good as Hell, I wasn't as enamored with her sophomore release. I wanted to love it! I love independently-owned or "indie" bookstores. I love booksellers and writers and stories and best friends and grandmothers. But there were aspects of the book that grated on my nerves. To be fair, my review is based on the NetGalley ARC, so hopefully (fingers crossed) things like overly- repeated phrases (some of which due to differences in generation and language I would never use), as well as a misplaced explanation about a secondary character, were caught and fixed in final edits. There were a few other things with characters, however, that were not my preference to read. 

The bedroom scenes were certainly open-door, but seemed to fit well into the story as it is. There's some language (some of which seemed forced, and other words seemed to repeat more often than I think is needed), and certainly adult situations. However, there are some really sweet scenes with Reid's classes that I loved and that were absolutely real. I hope his school exists in real life!

I landed on a 3-star rating, which for me means I liked the book, it is fine, but not what I'd recommend or gush about. 

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced ebook to read and review. All opinions are my own.