The Good Ones by Jenn McKinlay-Review, Guest Post & Giveaway
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Description:
Ryder Copeland is an accomplished architect and one heck of a father…not to mention tall and sexy. He’s everything a hero should be, and Lord knows, Maisy Kelly has read enough of her great-aunt Eloise’s romance novels to recognize one when she sees one. But like all fairy tales, Maisy can’t help but wonder if this Prince Charming is too good to be true…
Ryder is drawn to the shy, curly haired professor who hires him to convert the Victorian house she’s inherited from her aunt into a romance bookstore. Attracted to a woman for the first time since his divorce, Ryder finds himself wishing for a future with Maisy that he knows is impossible. Ryder has never wavered from his plan to leave the small town of Fairdale, North Carolina, so he can give his daughter the life she deserves. But suddenly he’s not so sure. And the closer he gets to Maisy, the harder it’s going to be to walk away…
Review:
The Good Ones by Jen McKinlay is the first book in her new Happily Ever After series. This was a fun sweet romance, with a wonderful couple and outstanding secondary characters.
We meet our heroine Maisy Kelly at the start, as she awaits the arrival of the architect to arrange for improvements to the house she inherited from her great aunt, who recently was deceased. Maisy is coming off having quit her job as a professor, when her ex boyfriend betrayed her by working behind her back to steal the promotion she expected. When her ex tries to convince her to stay on the job working for him, she refuses. Instead, Maisy plans to renovate the mansion to create a romance book store, as the house is full of romance books.
Ryder Copeland, our hero, is an architect, and a single dad, with a teenage daughter. Ryder wants this job to renovate the old sturdy mansion, and then plans to take a job out of town, as he arranges to send his daughter, Perry to an expensive school. Ryder does a double take when he meets Maisy, who was in her sloppy casual work clothes looking extremely young. Ryder will learn later on the Maisy is close to 30 and an accomplished woman. When Maisy meets Ryder, who is wearing a cowboy hat, she can’t take her eyes off him; he looked like a hot handsome cowboy from many of her romance books.
Maisy was a wonderful heroine, who was fun, spunky, and independent. I loved her, and the other savvy great friends of hers that we got to love too. Major kudos to McKinlay for giving us such great women, such as Maisy, Savy, Jeri and Hannah. I also loved Ryder’s daughter, Perry, who quickly became close to all the women. King George, the little kitten who brought them all together was such a sweet plus to the story.
What follows is a fun, amusing story, with Maisy and Ryder slowly falling for each other, despite Ryder’s determination that he is too old, not to mention he is moving away. They were a fun couple, with hot chemistry, that had us rooting hard for them to stay together. Jenn McKinlay also gave us some enjoyment with various mentioning of famous authors or book titles, during the renovation of the home, making it a fabulous book store with a turret and calling it ‘Happily Ever After’.
The Good Ones was a wonderful story, with the backdrop of the creation of the romance bookstore; a wonderful couple in Ryder and Maisy; the daughter and the adorable kitten, and a fantastic group of secondary characters. If you enjoy a sweet fun pure romance, you need to read this book written so very well by Jenn McKinlay.
Reviewed by Barb
Copy provided by Publisher
When Jake took off his cowboy hat and pulled her close, Claire wrapped her arms around him and the two became one. When they kissed she knew they were making each other a promise for today, tomorrow, and forever. Clare sighed. For the first time in her life, she knew that no matter what happened this man, who was her partner and her best friend, would be by her side. For all time.
Maisy Kelly closed the book and pressed it to her chest and sighed. Jake Sinclair, the perfect man, why did he reside only in the pages of a book? It wasn’t fair. She was twenty-nine and none of the men she’d ever dated had been even remotely as caring or charming as Jake Sinclair.
Knock knock knock.
Maisy blinked. Someone was at the door. No, no, no. She had a book hangover and she didn’t want to deal with the world right now.
Knock knock knock.
They weren’t going away. Maisy rose from where she’d been seated on the bottom step of the stairs. In theory, she was supposed to be cleaning out her Great Aunt Eloise’s house, in reality she was binge reading Auntie El’s hoarder’s trove of romance novels. It wasn’t making the task, which was heartbreaking to begin with, any easier.
Knock knock knock.
“All right, all right,” Maisy grumbled. “I’m coming.”
She strode to the door and yanked it open. Probably, if she had bothered to glance through the peep hole she would have been prepared, but she hadn’t and she wasn’t.
Standing on her front step, looking impossibly handsome and imposing, was a cowboy. Maisy glanced down at her book. On the cover was the artist’s rendering of Jake Sinclair, in jeans and a white shirt, leaning against a split rail fence, with a brown cowboy hat tipped carelessly over his brow. Maisy could practically hear the cows mooing in the background.
She glanced back up. Jeans, white shirt, and a cowboy hat. This guy had it all going on, except where the artist had left Jake’s face in shadow and not clearly defined, this guy was a full on 3D HD of hotness, with full lips, faint stubble on his chin, and quite possibly the bluest eyes Maisy had ever seen this side of the sky. She had a sudden urge to poke him with her pointer finger to see if he was real.
“Mornin’, Miss,” the man drawled, drawled!
Miss? Huh, she hadn’t been called “Miss” since she’d started teaching at Fairdale University. Why would he…she glanced down.
She was wearing her favorite floral Converse All-stars, ripped up denim shorts, and her old Fairdale University sweatshirt, the one with the sleeves that hung down past her hands, oh, and she had on no makeup and her hair was held back by an enormous pink headband. She probably looked like one of her college students, possibly a freshman.
In that brief shining moment, she was certain if it was possible to die of embarrassment, she would expire in three…two…one. She gave it a second. Nope, still standing. Damn it.
“Listen, I’m sorry, sir, but whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested—,” she began but he cut her off.
“Oh, I’m not selling anything,” he said. He looked confused. “This is three-twenty-three Willow Lane, right?”
“Yes, it is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back–,” she let her voice trail off, hoping he’d get the hint. He didn’t.
“I have an appointment with a Ms. Kelly,” he said. “Or Mrs. Kelly, I’m not sure.”
Maisy knew she didn’t have any appointments today. That was why she’d indulged herself in a good long reading sesh. This guy was probably a hustler, trying to con her to buy some property insurance or new windows. Ever since she’d inherited this monster of a house from Auntie El she’d had all sorts of scammers climbing out of the cracks in the sidewalk, trying to get her to refinance or buy a security system. It was exhausting.
The man met her squinty stare with one of his own. He shrinkled up one eye and mimicked her look of disbelief right down to the small lip curl. The nerve! Then she saw the twinkle in his one open eye, and Maisy couldn’t hold it. She burst out laughing.
He grinned at her and her ire diminished as she noted the cowboy had a sense of humor. Okay, she decided to give him a break and at least take his name and number.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What was your appointment with Ms. Kelly about?”
“It’s about the house, actually,” he said. “My name’s Ryder Copeland. I’m a restoration architect, and you are?”
“Ryder Copeland?” Maisy’s eyes went wide. “But our appointment isn’t until tomorrow, you know, Tuesday.”
“Today is Tuesday,” he said.
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “It’s Monday.”
“Sorry, it really is Tuesday. Wait,” he said. “Our appointment? You’re Maisy Kelly?”
In Defense of Romance
An interesting thing happened when I was writing THE GOOD ONES, a story about an English professor, Maisy Kelly, who inherits an old Victorian stuffed with romance novels from her Aunt Eloise and decides instead of pitching the books to hire architect Ryder Copeland to remodel the place into a bookstore. While fictionally sorting through years of romance novels with my heroine Maisy, I was reacquainted with the many brilliant and talented writers who I had sadly forgotten over the years. There really is some phenomenal writing in romance, just as in all genres, but romance, I believe, is the most frequently dismissed, which is a shame.
The character of Aunt Eloise, Auntie El, in the Happily Ever After books is that of a woman who was widowed in middle-age, losing the love of her life without ever having had children. In the dark days after losing her husband, she turned to romance novels to pull her through her grief and they became her comfort. Let me say here that there have been a lot of rough patches in my life where the only thing that pulled me through the bad, sad, mad days was a well crafted romantic comedy.
It occurred to me as I wrote THE GOOD ONES that I was inadvertently becoming an advocate for the genre. I have absolutely no problem with this since romance novels have been truer to me in my life than most of my boyfriends. And, in fact, when the drudgery of wife-ing and mothering is too much, romance novels do some of the emotional heavy lifting for my Hub and our hooligans.
Why? Because on a regular Tuesday, or any day but we’ll go with Tuesday, I wake up to the alarm clock’s flashing light and hit the ground running. It’s breakfast for two teens, two dogs, and three cats. Then it’s laundry, dishes, and a quick calendar check of everyone’s schedule. Things need to be bought so there’s an errand, oh, then there’s work stuff to do that doesn’t include writing. Done. Now it’s writing time. Ten pages a day must be accomplished or I’ll fall off deadline. On a good day, it’s done while everyone is out. On a bad day, and there are a lot of bad days, work is stopped by orthodontist appointments, gym workouts, school activities, and homework checks. Then it’s family dinner. And back to the writing for however long it takes to grind those final pages out. Finally, it’s time to curl up with a book and read. At this point in my day, I am emotionally exhausted. I’ve given all I’ve got to everyone I love. I am done.
This moment. This moment is when I reach for a romance novel. Asking the Hub to refill my dry emotional well is a Herculean task to dump on a man, who also hit the ground running and partnered in the chores, obligations, and responsibilities of the day. Plus, his football team probably lost so he’s happier unconscious at the moment. Sliding into a world where the heroine has her own struggles, where she can be sassy and smart, strong and brave, where she can fall in love and have someone fall in love with her in all her quirky weirdness in return, floods the wasteland of my emotional reserves and I am restored. When the alarm goes off the next morning, I am duly prepared to face another day and this is why I think everyone should read romance. Truly, it’s like medicine for the emotionally bereft.
Wishing you nothing but happily ever afters!
XOXO, Jenn McKinlay
Jenn McKinlay’s publisher, is offering a paper copy of THE GOOD ONES to ONE (1) commenter at The Reading Cafe.
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