Secrets of a (Somewhat) Sunny Girl by Karen Booth
Release Date: October 16, 2018
Length: 318 pages
Subgenre: Romantic Women’s Fiction
Book blurb:
As sisters, they tell each other all their secrets...except one.
With divorce and infidelity hanging from nearly every branch of her family tree, Katherine Fuller sees no point in marriage. Boyfriends? Sure. Sex? Of course. Wedding vows? No, thanks. Still, when her younger sister Amy gets engaged, Katherine gathers all the enthusiasm she can. She won’t let Amy down. She’s done enough of that for a lifetime.
As the sisters embark on wedding plans, Katherine’s college love resurfaces. It nearly killed Katherine to part from sexy Irish musician Eamon more than a decade ago, but falling under his spell a second time forces her to confront everything she hid from him. The secrets surrounding her mother’s death are still fresh and raw in her mind, but one has haunted her more than the others. She can’t bear to tell anyone, especially not Amy. It could ruin far more than a wedding. It could destroy a sister’s love forever.
Excerpt
Katherine
and Irish musician Eamon had a super-steamy relationship 11 years ago that
ended abruptly when she had to return to the US. Now he’s back in her life, but
has been out on the road for a month. This is his return to see her in New
York.
At ten on Sunday
morning, Eamon showed up at my apartment dressed as the man in black. Black
bomber jacket, black jeans, charcoal wool scarf wound around his neck. His dark
hair was pushed back from his face, showing off his now-feral beard. His eyes
crinkled at the corners when he smiled. I could see how excited he was to be
here. This unbelievable man was happy to see me.
“Hi.”
I didn't know what else to say. I was so painfully aware of what we both wanted
first from each other—everything we stopped short of doing at the Four Seasons.
He
carefully set down a battered acoustic guitar case along the wall just inside
the door. His canvas duffel didn't get the same treatment, forcefully flung
across the floor. “I hope you had the sense not to make any plans today. We are
not leaving this apartment.” His voice was rough and my head dizzied with the
possibilities.
Plans.
If only he knew. The sheets had been washed. Every square inch of my place was
immaculate. I was not only wearing really nice underwear, it was a matching
set. “I’m not dumb, you know.”
“Wasn’t
saying you are. I didn’t want to take off your clothes and have you tell me you
got tickets to see Hamilton.”
“Don’t
be silly. It’s still impossible to get tickets.”
He
smiled wide and uncoiled the scarf. “Funny. You’re funny.” He unzipped his
jacket. My breaths got shallower with every tiny stretch of his skin. He looked
skinny, and that made me want to feed him, but dammit, I had to focus. All the
while, he didn't take his gray eyes off me. He wrapped one arm around my waist,
dug the opposite hand into my hair, and nearly made me collapse on the floor
with a whisper of a kiss on the corner of my mouth. There was tongue—the
sweetest amount, except there was nothing sweet about it. The subtext was
nothing but hot sex.
“I
don't even get a hello?” I wanted to continue to be amusing or at least get my
bearings before this happened. Why couldn't I shut up already and rip off his
clothes?
“This
is my hello.” He reached down and
grabbed my ass, pulling my hips into his.
I
smiled as our lips drifted closer together. “I like your hello. I like it a
lot.”
“My
hello misses you.” Skipping a real kiss, his mouth roamed to my neck. I closed
my eyes and gave into his apparent need to torture me. Every inch of Eamon was
meant for making me feel good. He was going to remind me of it. With meticulous
detail.
What I thought about
Secrets of a (Somewhat) Sunny Girl
I love it when a story pulls me in within the first few pages of Chapter 1 and Secrets definitely had my attention. Katherine is a bit jaded about marriage and when her sister announces she's getting married, she's got to suck it up and not let her own feelings about holy wedlock cloud Amy's wedding and preparations.
It doesn't hurt that a former boyfriend, now musician and performer is in town. When Amy takes Katherine to Eamon's concert, Katherine isn't sure what to expect. She does know one thing and that is Eamon was a shining moment in her life, and even though it was ten years ago, no one has come close to Eamon in Katherine's eyes.
Eamon wants a second chance to see if they really had it all ten years ago, and even though Katherine is nervous about what letting heart go might bring, she can't turn her back on this second chance.
I really loved this story. Katherine has some secrets that she's going to have to spill if she has any chance of making it work and that's really tough for her to do. That's the crux of the story that plays out during the preparations for her sister's wedding. Katherine has good reason to not want to put her heart out there, and Eamon is going to have to shatter all of her preconceived notions that all marriages fail.
I also really liked the story between Katherine and her sister Amy and the family secrets that have colored both of their lives. Secrets of a (Somewhat) Sunny Girl really had it all for me -- a second chance romance and a tender resolution of past family hurts and secrets. I just loved it all. Definitely recommended.
An ARC was provided for review.
“Tender and touching, hot and heartfelt, Karen
Booth’s Secrets of a (Somewhat) Sunny Girl is a joy to read. Once I started, I
couldn’t stop. I’ve rarely rooted so hard for a couple as I did Katherine and
Irish crooner Eamon. This was a love story I could truly believe in!” – Tiffany Reisz, USA Today Bestselling
Author
"This book was heartfelt, it was emotional, it
was beautifully told, and it was absolutely one of my favorite books of
2018." – 5 stars, Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews
"Rich, warm, and complex, Secrets of a
(Somewhat) Sunny Girl is a story for anyone who's ever lost her way, a story
about being found again, about what it means to believe you deserve to love and
be loved."
– Serena Bell, USA Today Bestselling Author of Head Over
Heels
Giveaway: Win a signed print set of
Karen Booth’s three Romantic Women’s Fiction novels: Secrets of a (Somewhat)
Sunny Girl, Bring Me Back and Back Forever, or 1 of 2 e-copies of Bring Me
Back!
About Bring Me Back:
Nearly
forty, Claire Abby had thought life would be a whole lot smoother by now.
Single parenting her college-bound daughter is trying, her journalism career is
fading, her sister’s a handful, her dad is worse, and her mom has been gone so
long it’s hard to remember what it was like when she was here.
So it’s both a lucky break and a jaw-dropping distraction when Claire
lands an interview with British rock star Christopher Penman. Claire spent her
teenage years fantasizing he was her boyfriend. In person, Chris is everything
Claire feared—off-the-charts sexy, ridiculously charming, and utterly
nerve-wracking. He's not about to discuss the rumors he’s dodged for a decade.
She must earn his trust and unearth the truth, but she never banked on the
heartbreaking secret behind it.
His blockbuster story is her first priority when she returns home, a
nearly impossible task when Christopher starts calling. And flirting. There's
no denying his wit or his buttery British accent, and once she agrees to see
him, it's beyond anything her teenage brain ever imagined. But when
Christopher's painful past repeats itself, can Claire smooth out her life and
save the man she could never forget?
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About Karen Booth
Karen Booth is a midwestern girl transplanted in the South, raised on ‘80s music and repeated readings of Forever by Judy Blume. An early preoccupation with rock ‘n’ roll led her to spend her 20s working her way from intern to executive in the music industry. When her kids came along, she traded late nights for early mornings, writing contemporary romance and women’s fiction. Karen was a finalist for RT Magazine’s Series Romance of the Year and Gold Seal of Excellence, and the 2018 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award. Her books have been translated into seventeen languages.
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