Love and Other Mistakes (Jessica Kate) – Review

Posted 1 August 2019 by Katie in Christian Fiction, Contemporary, Humour, Review, Romance / 0 Comments

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Love and Other Mistakes by Jessica Kate, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!


Title: 
Love and Other Mistakes
Author: 
Jessica Kate
Genre: 
Contemporary Romance/Comedy
Publisher: 
Thomas Nelson
Release date: 
30 July 2019
Pages: 
352

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Love and Other Mistakes


About the Book

There’s a fine line between love and hate . . . And for the last seven years, Natalie Groves has hated Jeremy Walters.

Natalie Groves was meant for great things. But soon after her fiancé left, Natalie’s father was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly her grand plans evaporated . . . and God felt very far away.

Fast-forward seven years, and an internship presents Natalie a chance at her destiny—but she needs a job to work around it. And the only offer available is worse than a life sentence. Her ex Jeremy, now back in town, is desperate for help with his infant son and troubled teenage niece, Lili. And Natalie may be just the one to help Jeremy . . . provided they don’t kill each other in the process.

When Jeremy and Natalie join forces, sparks fly. But will either of them get burned along the way?

Excerpt

A man lay splayed out on the footpath ahead. More than six feet of pale skin and freckles. Unmoving.
    The sharp twist in Natalie’s gut eased as she slowed the SUV and flashed her turn signal. That man definitely wasn’t her seventy-one-year-old father.
    Thank you, God.
    She swiped a stray tear that had gathered in the corner of her eye, then squinted at the figure on the ground. It sure looked like . . . 
    Movement caught her eye. An older man, standing behind the guy on the footpath, holding a baby with one arm as the other flagged her down.
    She whipped the car into a parking space, fifteen yards from the man prone on the ground. She couldn’t see his face from this angle. But recognition tickled the edge of her mind. Mouth dry and stomach on spin cycle, she jumped out.
    The older man rushed toward her, Colonel Sanders without the smile. She tried not to stare.
    “Natalie?”
    She gestured to the man on the ground behind the colonel. “What happ—”
    He dumped the baby into her arms. It squirmed and squealed, and she recoiled half a step as the child wobbled in her tenuous grasp. She clutched a handful of blue jumpsuit while the baby arched his back against her, kicked his chubby legs, and reached toward the man on the ground. “What is going on?”
    “You know this guy, right?”
    The Colonel Sanders look-alike blocked her view, so she couldn’t confirm or deny.
    “He was jogging from that building there, back to his car with his kid.” He pointed to the wriggling child in her arms. “And whacked his head against that.” His finger indicated a tree branch that stretched six feet above the sidewalk. “I stopped to check he was okay, but the cut on his forehead bled and he got dizzy and passed out. Guess he hates blood. I called an ambulance, but there’s a crash on the other side of town, and they’ve been held up. So I grabbed the emergency contact card in his wallet.”
    He paused for breath as he held up the card. It was misshapen and discolored with age, like he’d pried it from the depths of a wallet that should’ve been retired last decade.
    Colonel Sanders finally stepped aside so she could see who lay on the sidewalk. The man on the ground shifted, groaned.
    Natalie’s brain begged her eyes to admit they were lying. She scanned the man from head to toe. Brown hair with red highlights that caught the sunshine. Boyish freckles. Broad shoulders.
    Jeremy Walters, her ex-fiancè.
    I’m outta here.

Taken from Love and Other Mistakes by Jessica Kate
Copyright © 2019 by Jessica Kate
Used by permission of http://www.thomasnelson.com/

Review

What a fantastic debut! By the time I got to the end of the first chapter, I was already in love with this author’s voice. It’s the kind of deep point of view that really immerses you in the story, and it reads as naturally and enjoyably as a conversation with your best friend. Best of all, it was obvious from the first chapter that this story would do justice to the complex emotions involved in the love/hate relationship between Natalie and Jeremy.

Even so, I was surprised by the depth and breadth of this story, particularly where Jeremy’s niece Lili was concerned. She finds herself in a really difficult position that only becomes more difficult as the story progresses, and the way her character was written was absolutely spot on—her personality, her emotional tumult, and the way she responded and interacted throughout the story. Fabulous characterisation!

And that goes for Jeremy and Natalie, too. This is as much a story of their personal growth as it is their gradual reconciliation—more points in favour of this author! Character growth is so satisfying! And even when Natalie was doing her darnedest to hold on to her anger, she and Jeremy had a chemistry I couldn’t help but enjoy. And I don’t mean romantic chemistry so much as the chemistry between two people who bounce off each other in conversation and in life. Which made those romantic moments that much more enjoyable when they came.

So, what else do you need to know about this story? First of all, it’s a novel about imperfect people. And imperfect Christians. And in the case of one secondary character in particular, an imperfect Christian who’s making a right royal mess of other people’s lives (and his/her own) as a result of some selfish choices. This story doesn’t moralise over those choices; it simply allows the consequences speak for themselves. And they spoke loud and clear as far as this secondary character was concerned. Even so, some readers may feel that the story didn’t deal with said secondary character as thoroughly as it could have. Personally, I think that’s simply because that wasn’t the point of this story. This story was about the effect those choices had on the main characters in this story.

Secondly, this is a family drama as much as it’s a contemporary romance. At times the subject matter is a little heavy, and just like in real life, things aren’t picture-perfect by the end of the story, but there was a lightness to the author’s writing style that counterbalanced this without undermining its impact, and through it all was the message that God is faithful, even when those around us (or perhaps we, ourselves) let us down.

Bottom line? I’m super keen to get my hands on the next book from this author!

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not influenced the content of my review, which is my honest and unbiased opinion.

About the Author

Australian author Jessica Kate is obsessed with sassy romances.

She packs her novels with love, hate, and everything in between—and then nerds out over her favorite books, movies and TV in the StoryNerds podcast. When she’s not writing or discussing fiction, she’s hunting the world for the greatest pasta in existence.

Her debut novel Love and Other Mistakes releases July 2019, while A Girl’s Guide to the Outback hits shelves in January 2020.

Receive her sassy short The Kiss Dare FREE when you sign up for her newsletter at jessicakatewriting.com.

Connect with Jess:  Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Instagram

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