Title: The Cul-de-Sac War
Author: Melissa Ferguson
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Release date: 10 November 2020
Pages: 336
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About the Book
All’s fair in love and prank wars.
Bree Leake doesn’t want to be tied down. She’s had more jobs than she can count, and she plans to move as soon as the curtains fall on her less-than-minor stage role at The Barter—the oldest live performance theater in the US. But just when it’s time to move on again, Bree’s parents make her an offer: hold steady for a full year, and they will give her the one thing she’s always wanted—her grandmother’s house. Her dreams are coming true . . . until life at the theater throws her some curve balls.
And then there’s Chip McBride—her handsome and infuriating next-door neighbor.
Chip just might be the only person whose stubborn streak can match Bree’s. She would move heaven and earth to have him off her cul-de-sac and out of her life, but according to the bargain she’s struck, she can’t move out of her house and away from the man who’s making her life miserable. So begins Bree’s obsessive new mission: to drive Chip out of the neighborhood—and fast.
Bree isn’t the only one who’s a tad competitive, and Chip is more than willing to fight fire with fire. But as their pranks escalate, the line between love and hate starts to blur—and their heated rivalry threatens to take a hilarious, heartwarming, and romantic new turn.
Excerpt
They say 95 percent of the time the first impression you have of a person is right.
Well, if anyone in the audience was watching her clutch a plastic fern with one hand and the slumping fabric on her chest with the other, all the while beads from her costume scattered across the shadowy stage with a thousand ping-ping-pings, they’d have a fairly accurate picture of the woman formally known as Bree LEake. Or, in this particular moment, Mustardseed, fairy servant of Titania, as vital to A Midsummer Night’s Dream as the fern in her hand.
“How canst thou thus for shame, Titania . . .”
Glitter floated in the green-tinted spotlight as Bree stood far upstage, where she stayed approximately always. She took a step to the right. Then another. Beads dropped with each movement, no matter how she adjusted her hold on the intricate fabric dissolving in her hands. Leave it to her roommate, the Barter’s one and only costume designer, to go overkill.
Actually, leave it to her roommate to plan a wardrobe malfunction like this. Evie had probably gone to great lengths, in fact, to attach the shoulder straps with just enough strength to hold up until Bree made one fatal step onto the long tulle train that—now that she thought of it—no other fairies in the cast possessed.
She could just see Evie now, in the dim light of their basement, laughing maniacally over her sewing machine.
So here Bree stood, newest member of the nation’s oldest liver performance theatre, trying to shield herself with a plastic plant while smiling a not-too-convincing stage smile as heat crept up her neck. Not that anyone would notice her blushing, given that her face and neck were painted Andes-mint green.
While she understood all of this was very, very important, her immature side couldn’t help seeing it as also very, very funny. But laughing was, by all means, the most critical thing to avoid at this moment.
Do. Not. Laugh.
She mustn’t laugh.
She was a professional artist, and artists were at all times calm, cool, and engaged.
She took a step to the right.
Ping-ping-ping.
Slid her left foot to meet her right.
Ping-ping-ping.
One creeping step to the right.
Another.
With three more swift ping-ping-ping steps she slipped off stage and broke into a run between the curtains.
Review
Melissa Ferguson has an uncanny knack for choosing premises that make me nervous about whether I will enjoy her stories. Two people dating but keeping a big secret from each other (The Dating Charade)? Yep, pretty nervous. But I took a chance and was surprised by how much I enjoyed the story. Next door neighbours who are determined to one-up each other in a prank war? Again, more than a little nervous. And as it happened, I didn’t enjoy this story as much as her first. However, there were definitely things I did enjoy, too, so let’s start there.
Firstly, I enjoyed Ferguson’s writing style; it’s engaging and well suited to the rom com genre, and the back-and-forth between Chip and Bree was entertaining. She also has an interesting cast of characters to round out the story. I’m not generally a fan of pranks (hence the nervousness), but these ones were creative and relatively harmless, even if they did become a little over-the-top—the last one in particular. That said, Chip’s 230-pound English mastiff named Russell and his literally overwhelming love for Bree brought forth the most laughs from me. No pranks required!
There were other elements that didn’t work for me, however. The events that brought the turnaround in Chip and Bree’s relationship were believable, but I thought things progressed too quickly after that. I was also creeped out by the fact that these people apparently didn’t close their curtains at night time and could see into each other’s bedrooms (and yet managed to avoid any embarrassing moments). And there were aspects of their working lives that seemed a bit far-fetched as well. Would Bree really be able to support herself financially as a member of the local theatre troupe? I risk going into some spoilers if I mention too much about Chip’s situation, but suffice to say I wondered about his business sense and the plausibility of him getting a $2million line of credit in order to bid for the job he wanted.
And yes, I realise these are pragmatic quibbles and this is a rom com and “COME ON! It’s not supposed to be 100% realistic,” but everyone has their areas where they’re happy to suspend disbelief and areas where they just get stuck, and those were mine. That said, I can see this story appealing to readers who aren’t concerned about those kinds of details in their rom com reads.
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
Melissa Ferguson lives in Bristol, Tennessee, where she is an assistant professor at King University and pens books that make her laugh and grow. She used to have hobbies like running and backpacking the Appalachian Trail outside her door. Now she and her husband are outnumbered, and her hobbies include diaper changes, chasing toddlers in parking lots, and admiring the Appalachian Trail out her minivan window while singing “Winnie the Pooh.” She survives by Jesus, rom coms, and roughly two espresso shots a day. The Dating Charade is her debut novel.
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