40-Love by Olivia Dade

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Title: 40-Love
Author: Olivia Dade
Series: There's Something About Marysburg #2
Published by: Tantor Audio
Release Date: April 13, 2021
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Kelsey Navarro
Length: 10 hours and 1 minute
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Source: Hoopla
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 2
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ Libro.FM ✩ Chirp
My rating:

Blurb:

This match is no game.

When a rogue wave strips Tess Dunn of her bikini top, desperate, half-naked times call for desperate, please-cover-me-kids-are-coming-closer measures. Enter Lucas Karlsson, AKA that flirty Swede in the water nearby. When he prevents her bare buoys from being exposed to fellow vacationers, even an ocean can’t drown the sparks that fly.

Lucas, a former top-level tennis pro now giving lessons at the resort, fled there after the abrupt, painful end to his injury-plagued career. But he’s finally ready to move on with his life—and after a few late-night, hands-on sessions with Tess, he’s eager to prove he’s the ace she wants.

But this match comes with challenges: She’s forty, and at twenty-six, he’s barely old enough to rent a car. Worse, they only have two weeks together before Tess returns to her assistant-principal life in Virginia. During that brief time, they’ll have to play hard, take a few risks, and find out whether their chemistry is a one-shot wonder…or whether they’re meant to be doubles partners for life.

My Review:

3.5 stars — There were some absolute 5 star moments in this book where Lucas and Tess would settle into this teasing banter, and I would be on my walks laughing out loud, and it was just delightful.  But there were also moments that felt drawn out, moments where the development of Tess may have been realistic, but I grew frustrated and my mind wandered.

Tess was both inspiring and frustrating.  The amount of time she held on to her hurt and damage from her previous relationship was both wholeheartedly realistic, and just tiring from a romance book perspective.  I wanted her to see Lucas’s efforts earlier, I wanted her not to revert…but saying all that, I felt like I did believe her growth.  Truly, wholeheartedly.  She just fought against herself so hard.  She had lots of absolutely admirable qualities — she was hilarious and sassy, she truly cared about the people in her life, and I loved how passionate she was about her job and doing what she could for her students.  And most of the time she was pretty okay with her body too, which was refreshing.  Not all the time — the author tried to make it out to be about her age when comparing herself to Lucas, but I felt like there was some body comparison too.  But then again, that’s just reality as a bigger girl.

Lucas was unbelievably sweet, a little naïve, but in general pretty awesome.  He had missteps along the way, but I loved that he really saw Tess and he challenged her at every step along the way.  Seeing him when Tess opened his eyes to his potential, to all the things that he had going for him was so rewarding.  I absolutely loved that aspect of this story.

And I really enjoyed them together!  They were hilarious, they had great chemistry from friendship to steamy, and we as the readers really got to see them work through stumbling blocks.  It was extremely rewarding.

So yeah…it had all the good elements, it just lagged a bit too much at times.  But that could be my mood too.