Genre: Contemporary Romance
POV: 3rd Person
Sensuality: Warm
Violence: N/A
Format: Digital
Source: A digital ARC courtesy of Harlequin via NetGalley
My Grade: B
Almost Perfect is the second book in Susan Mallery’s new series set in the fictitious town of Fool’s Gold. It tells the story of Liz Sutton, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and her former love, the wealthy Ethan Hendrix, a descendent of the founder of Fool’s Gold.
After being publicly humiliated by her boyfriend, Ethan Hendrix, Liz Sutton left Fool’s Gold at the age of eighteen. She returned a few week’s later to inform Ethan that she was pregnant with his child. Discovering him in bed with the girl who bullied her in high school, Liz fled without telling Ethan her news.
Liz moved to San Francisco and lived in poverty with her baby son. To escape the harsh reality of her life, she started to write. A decade later, she’s an NYT bestselling author with several successful mysteries to her name. Her son, Tyler, is eleven years old and her pride and joy. Despite a difficult start, Liz has carved out a decent life for them. With the notable exception of a brief visit to Fool’s Gold six years previously, Liz has never been back to her home town, and has no contact with her family.
Liz’s comfortable existence is thrown into turmoil when she receives an email from the fourteen-year-old niece she never knew she had. Her estranged brother, Roy, is in prison, and his wife has walked out on his two daughters, leaving them to fend for themselves. Melissa and Abby have run out of money and are desperate to find some way of staying together. They don’t want to end up in the foster care system and run the risk of being separated. Acting on instinct, Liz packs her bags, collects Tyler from school, and heads to Fool’s Gold to look after the girls.
When Liz arrives, she’s appalled at the conditions the girls have been living in and furious at the people of the town who have once again failed to notice children in need. To add to her bad mood, she receives a disconcertingly cheery welcome from Ethan Hendrix, the man who supposedly wrote to her six years previously telling her he wanted nothing to do with her or their son. It transpires that the letter was forged by Ethan’s late wife, and he knew nothing of Ethan’s existence until Liz rolled back into town.
Ethan is livid to discover that Liz had his child and never bothered to inform him. He’s lost eleven years with Tyler, and he’s determined to make up for lost time. However, Liz never named him on Tyler’s birth certificate, so Ethan requires her cooperation if he’s to establish a relationship with his son. He wants Tyler to stay in Fool’s Gold, but it will take some persuasion for Liz to agree.
Juggling her nieces’ situation with the hostility of Ethan, his family, and most of Fool’s Gold’s residents, Liz is not having a good summer. She can’t wait to sell her brother’s house and move back to San Francisco. Unfortunately for her, life is not destined to be that simple. In desperation, Ethan has her served with a court order demanding shared custody of Tyler. When the judge orders her to remain in Fool’s Gold until she and Ethan can work out a plan for custody, Liz is obliged to prolong her stay in the town she hates and which she is convinced hates her. However, things are rarely as they seem. Over the course of the summer, Liz is forced to confront her past, and Ethan comes to realise he was far from blameless in his dealings with Liz all those years ago.
In Almost Perfect, Susan Mallery concentrates on what she does best: messy family relationships. Liz’s nieces are not easy to deal with, particularly the older one; Ethan’s mother is furious with both Liz and Ethan; Ethan and Tyler form a tentative bond which grows over the course of the book; and Liz realises that her brother takes after their mother and has no intention of being emotionally supportive of his daughters.
While I found Ethan domineering at times, I loved the fact that his mother and sisters were quick to put him in his place. His awkward relationship with Liz is well done, and I thought the slow development between them worked. Neither Liz nor Ethan was entirely innocent in the situation which developed between them all those years ago, and they come to realise that they owe each other an apology before they can move on.
Almost Perfect contains a good balance of romantic escapism and gritty reality. I love the setting of Fool’s Gold. I’m looking forward to the next book in this series.
Other Books in this Series:
Chasing Perfect (2010) by Susan Mallery
{ 2 comments }
Oh good! A secret baby! I haven’t read one of these in years. I find it interesting that the heroine is allowed to be at fault. Hopefully, I won’t hate her for it. I adore messy family relationships!
@Mary Lamb: The heroine isn’t entirely at fault. The hero also has to accept some of the responsibility.
I’m not usually a fan of secret baby stories but I thought this one worked precisely because of the fact that both the hero and the heroine had to face up to their past mistakes.