FLAP:
Noelle Lewis doesn’t have time for long walks on the beach, brunch with the girls, or summer vacations. She’s too busy saving up to go back to college. After recently getting laid off from her bookseller job, her main gig is now serving as a ‘stand-in’ bridesmaid, which doesn’t pay enough for the upcoming semester’s tuition. But then the perfect, if not unconventional, opportunity arises… Jeremiah Smith II, grandson of the founder of Smith’s Sweets – a well-known baked goods company – once lived a life of frivolity. Since his grandfather’s death, Jeremiah’s tried to clean up his act, but it’s hard to focus when his family requests that he join them at their summer house in Heart Beach, New Jersey, where his most painful memory lies. To avoid going there, Jeremiah claims he already has plans with his girlfriend, and of course, his family tells him to bring her. The problem? Jeremiah doesn’t have a girlfriend. After a chance meeting, Noelle and Jeremiah come to an agreement. He’ll hire her to be his stand-in girlfriend for the weekend, and she’ll use that money toward her tuition. She figures it will be quick, easy money, but as it turns out, Jeremiah’s family is lovely, and Jeremiah is even lovelier. Soon, a weekend agreement turns into an entire summer, and Noelle and Jeremiah will have to keep their hearts in check, or else it’s sink or swim for them both.
A love letter to a perfect summer and I loved it.
It checks all the boxes for what one enjoys in a summer read:
Beach side community
Family legacy
Black love
Black joy
Will they, won’t they.
Family secrets.
I love a soft summer story, and this is all ways soft and lovely. Familial obligations and a desire to be tethered to the family will always be a point of tension because of the secrets they hold close. But what I loved about this book was how the tension was outside of the MMC and FMC, they were lock step in their union, even if she was a girlfriend for hire for the summer. Something about how they get together is so charming, but I also love a family unit that is stuck close by together. Love, love, LOVE the family matriarch because her story is one we follow from the beginning, but we see her come into her own because of the loving foundation that was already set for her from the beginning with her parents. I thoroughly enjoyed how she paid it forward with her children and their dynamic. When legacy is in question it brings together the family whether or not they want to be together and Jeremiah running away from his family summer gather, (I LOVE THIS!) needs to provide his mother with an explanation or come with said reason for the hiding. But when things go awry the family bands together because for richer or for poorer that is what family does.
And when the unravelling happens it can go either way, but what Kristina Forest does is get us together with the couple on the inside and root for them. You cannot help but root for them because these two are just darling.