Summer's Road by Kelly Moran Published by CreateSpace on April 5th 2016
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Perhaps her true love was always there, waiting...
After her father's death, Summer Quinn is alone in the world. With no family to fill the void, she finds comfort among friends. But her boyfriend wants to take their relationship to the next level, and suddenly there's an unexpected attraction building between her and her best friend, Ian Memmer--a man who's never settled for one woman. And now her estranged mother has reappeared. As secrets from her family's past and Ian's true feelings emerge, she's faced with choices she's not sure she can make. Happiness hinges on forgiveness and opening herself to love, even if it's not where she expected to find it.
Top Review Pick from Night Owl Reviews & The Romance Reviews!*A stand-alone novel with a HEA*
Read loosely as a bildungsroman, ‘Summer’s Road’ is a fantastic take on a woman’s growing up journey and the tight, transformative bonds of friendship which weathered every obstacle; as a romance however, I’m not sure it succeeded.
Summer Quinn is a sharply-drawn character, nuanced and so multi-layered that I can’t help but like her and the very real struggle she faces in reconciling passion, commitment and love.
Yet there are lines of friendship that shouldn’t be crossed and I cringed yet soldiered on when the book walked right over them, particularly the cheating aspect that I couldn’t quite stomach, as procrastination and contemplation gave way to selfishness and stupidity. As the story progressed, I was more and more convinced – and I’m fully aware that I’ve got an unpopular opinion here – that Ian should have simply remained a great friend instead of a lover, because I thought he’d failed in every aspect as the latter.
Apart from bring written as the casual manwhore archetype (albeit with a more sensitive side) which I’ve always despised, it was Ian’s characterisation, as with most player types that simply convinced me of his affinity for friendship than ‘romance’. His faulty logic of sleeping around, yet hoping that the argument that all those women who ‘meant nothing’ would hold water simply because he’d ‘waited around’ for Summer to see him there never worked – and probably never would – for me. Yet if that rationale was meant to make a woman feel special, then perhaps it’s simply proof that I’ll never be able to sigh along with those who simply love to be the one who ties down the bad boy and his fervent promises of forever after finally tagging the girl he wants.
Cowardice I thought, would have been a better word to describe Ian and his romantic stance, when we’re told that he’d always known what he wanted but never had the guts to step out and do anything about it. I felt, on the contrary, for poor Matt, who didn’t deserve what he had coming to him because of 2 people’s indecision about each other.
Mixed feelings is what ‘Summer’s Road’ left me with at the very end; I appreciated the degree of development that the book dealt with, but would have been perfectly satisfied with a thorough exploration of friendship that stretched but didn’t cross boundaries.
