CBR18 Book 29: "Dolly All the Time" by Annabel Monaghan

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book will be out on May 26th. 

Dolly Brick is a problem solver and has spent most of her life taking care of her family. When her mother left Dolly, her father and her siblings when Dolly was far too young to have to deal with it, she nevertheless ended up basically mothering her younger sister and mentally disabled younger brother. Now she's a 39-year-old single mother (the baby daddy gave her money to "take care of it", she took the money and bought a crib) with a teenage son, Gus. They mostly live in Boston, where Dolly is a kindergarten teacher (she also has two other part-time jobs), but return to her home town of Whitfield, Rhode Island, every few months so Dolly can take care of odds and ends around the house for her dad and brother. After the house catches fire (thankfully not too disastrous) one night, Dolly and Gus have to abandon their other summer plans to return to Whitfield and deal with the damage.

Dolly's father is extremely risk-averse, after spending much of his life paying off the debts of a business expansion that went wrong. He's finally more or less debt-free when the fire department informs them that the roof of the house is very close to falling apart, and the house will have to be condemned if the roof isn't replaced in its entirety. Dolly's already working three jobs (and helping out at her father's fish shop over the summer) - she's not going to find 50 000 dollars just lying around. 

Thankfully, a possible solution presents itself to Dolly after having helped Stewart Whitfield, the eldest son of the wealthy family the town is literally named after. She helps him change a flat tyre (because rich guys never know how to do anything practical), while he confesses his fiancée has been photographed canoodling with a baseball player. A few days later, it turns out Dolly and Stewart were photographed together, and the tabloids are speculating about her being his new love interest. Apparently, Stewart's family and the board of directors of the family company, who are looking to appoint a new CEO when Stewart's father is retiring at the end of the summer, all think that Stewart is a boring workaholic who doesn't have any kind of life outside of the company. He needs to seem like he's a well-rounded individual with some actual non-work interests, and having a girlfriend would help with that. So Stewart is willing to pay Dolly to be his girlfriend for the summer. Dolly can get the money to save her family home and establish a bit of a financial cushion, while Stewart gets to pretend he's not a total failure in the romance department because his fiancée cheated on him. 

While they begin with carefully arranged public dates, Dolly and Stewart are soon spending way more time together than their contract requires. While Stewart had trouble taking time out to spend with his former fiancée, he seems to happily take any chance to hang out with Dolly (and occasionally her entire family). Dolly knows that the relationship isn't real, and that it has an expiration date at the end of the summer, but is also shocked to realise how lovely it is to have someone who seems focused on what SHE wants and does his best to take care of her. She tries so very hard not to fall for Stewart, but may have finally found an impossible challenge.

Last summer, I got an ARC of Annabel Monaghan's It's a Love Story, and since it was perfectly fine (if not all that memorable), I requested an ARC for this when I saw it on NetGalley. It's basically a more realistic take on Pretty Woman, except Dolly Brick is a penniless single mother, rather than a leggy L.A call girl. While the start is a bit slow, it didn't take me long to be utterly charmed by Dolly and her family. The book is both romantic and funny, and a lot of the humour is at the expense of the tremendously wealthy, like the Whitfields (who to be fair, seem mostly very nice for super rich people). 

Dolly has had a hard life, while Stewart's has been one of immense privilege. Despite this, Dolly's mental health is a lot better than Stewart's, and her family are a lot more honest with one another about what troubles them. The exception is Dolly's younger sister, who keeps trying to help out but is often pushed away by Dolly. The sister (whose name I don't remember) correctly feels like Dolly carries resentment for having a lot of her adolescence ruined because she needed to step into their mother's role and still feels like she needs to shelter her sister. Stewart is a perfectionist, with occasionally crippling anxiety, and very few members of his family realise that he, every so often, suffers from panic attacks. Stewart is very aware of his family's legacy, and he desperately wants to do a perfect job and continue that legacy for a new generation. While he has a therapist, he hides his difficulties from his family.

While we encounter both Dolly and Stewart's families over the course of the book, Dolly's family are much more present as supporting characters. Dolly seems to form a genuine friendship with Stewart's sister, though, and towards the end of the book, she also forms a very nice bond with Stewart's mother, who is a paediatrician. 

Sadly, it is still the case with most romances that there has to be a third-act complication, and I was rather unhappy with the way Stewart behaved during this part. Thankfully, he comes to his senses and realises what an utter idiot he has been, eventually, and grovels most satisfactorily. 

This book was a funny, light-hearted, very romantic read. It was almost a five-star read (you know what you did, Stewart!). I'm very happy I asked for this ARC, and will absolutely be reading more of Monaghan's books in the future. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover manages to be fairly specific (Dolly with her snazzy bob on board Stewart's sailboat), while also being rather vague. You can't really see any clear facial features on either person on the cover, but it nevertheless gives you a look into one scene of the book. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 31:"It's a Love Story" by Annabel Monaghan

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and G.B. Putnam for this ARC. My opinion is my own.

Jane Jackson spent her adolescence as the comic relief character "Janey Jakes" on a popular teen sitcom. Now she's a creative executive at a movie studio, and really trying to get a script she loves turned into a movie. Frequently crippled with anxiety and self esteem issues, Jane has learned to "fake it till you make it", but she may have faked it too far this time. Desperate to get the movie script approved by her boss, she lied and claimed that Jack Quinlan, one of the hottest pop stars around, promised to write a song for the soundtrack. 

Except Jane hasn't seen or spoken to Jack for twenty years, since they recorded a hit song for her sitcom. His agent refuses to pass on her messages to him, and her only way to possibly get a chance to talk to him is to track him down at a music festival in Long Island. To accomplish this, she will need to ally herself with the man she briefly crushed on and now loathes, artsy cinematographer Dan Finnegan. His family lives in the town in Long Island where Jack will be playing, and he offers to take Jane, since he needs to go to a family reunion there anyway. 

Jane, having assumed that Dan is from some rich and elitist family, is surprised to discover that his family are all farmers and construction workers, and he's the odd one out, an introverted artist in a family full of outgoing and gregarious labourers. While it's obvious that Dan loves his parents and brothers, he's also not entirely comfortable among them, and that everyone automatically assumes that Dan and Jane are dating further complicates matters. 

Jane is forced to realise that her second impression of Dan (after finding him very appealing at their first meeting) as pretentious and judgmental is quite incorrect, and that her first impression, that he's a charming and interesting person whom she could possibly fall for, is much closer to the truth. Unfortunately, Jane has never been lucky in love before, and doubts that there could be anything serious between her and Dan, even if they do succeed in their wild quest to track down Jack Quinlan. 

As is far too often the case with me, I'm really behind on my reviews and trying desperately to remember the plots of books I read months ago. Honesty forces me to admit that despite my having finished this book a mere month ago, I'm having real trouble remembering a lot of details of the story. I had to read both the official synopsis and glance at several reviews on Goodreads to remind myself of what actually happens.

I remember that Jane has self-esteem issues, not helped by her father abandoning her and her mother when she was younger. She became a teen TV star to help pay the bills, and her crush ended in a rather humiliating experience. She keeps following her co-stars from the sitcom on social media, and they all seem to have vastly more successful lives than her. 

Dan is a cinematographer who made a very critically acclaimed, but otherwise mostly overlooked, movie. He also takes a lot of photos, and that's how he and Jane first met. They had undeniable chemistry, but before they had a chance to get to know each other, Dan shot down a script idea in a meeting with Jane's boss, and now she resents him. 

While they're in Long Island they stay in bunk beds in Dan's old room (the whole house is full of his brothers and in-laws there for his parents' wedding anniversary) and chat a lot, and they take bike rides and go to the beach and do all sorts of adorable things, and yet it all blends together in my head, and I can't remember what episodes happened in The Love Haters (a vastly less entertaining book, which nevertheless had a heroine with anxiety and self-esteem issues, and was set by the sea, so had scenes involving bathing) and what happened in this one. There were quite a few nice, heart-warming scenes with Dan's family, I think?

I don't really feel like I can rate a book I have such a hazy memory of any higher than 3.5 stars, but I am absolutely open to reading more of Monaghan's books in the future. 

Judging a book by its cover: A lot of times, these covers have absolutely nothing to do with anything that happens in this story. But the curly-haired woman, with the blue polka-dotted bathing suit, is exactly like Jane is described in the book. So while it's yet another animated cover (le sigh), it at least fits the content of the story.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read