So, like I’ve mentioned, I went through a major reading slump in the middle of August. I just kept having extremely bland reads and couldn’t work up any kind of enthusiasm for… well, much of anything. So I flipped through my Kindle to the oldest books on there and decided to just start reading. The first book in the Mirror Lake trilogy was one of the very first free Kindle books that I got, and while it wasn’t an awesome story, I did enjoy it enough to read the other two books in the series.
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This Thing Called Love – 3/5 – The first book centers on Olivia and Brad. Olivia grew up in Mirror Lake, but then went on to college and a successful career. She and Brad were super serious in high school, but somehow their relationship stalled out. Later, Olivia’s sister married Brad’s brother, but at the beginning of the book those two have died in a car wreck and left their infant daughter to Olivia. So Olivia is back in town trying to get life sorted out, and of course all of a sudden Brad is back in the picture.
This was a perfectly fine way to waste a few hours. I liked both the main characters, even if there was quite a bit more sexy times than I thought necessary. There was also a bit more angst than I really like to have, with a lot of I’m just not good enough from both characters. It annoyed me because every time they ought to have sat down and had a good talk, instead they sat down and had a serious snog. If they’d done the conversation first, the book would have only been about two chapters long.
But even though I’m griping about it, the story was actually perfectly pleasant, which is why I went on to read book two.
This Love of Mine – 3.5/5 – Actually, the real reason I went on to read this book was because it had a good fake relationship trope, which I do enjoy. And it was actually set up in a pretty plausible manner, so I was willing to roll with it. Meg is one of Olivia’s best friends, and Ben is Brad’s brother, so there were plenty of cameo appearances from first-book characters, which I always enjoy. I liked Ben and Meg even better than Brad and Olivia and felt like their whole relationship made a lot more sense. There was still too much sexual energy focus, but they were also able to actually have conversations that helped them grow as individuals. The ending seemed a little bit abrupt and a little too “Happy endings for everyone!” (and this is coming from someone who is 100% all about happy endings for everyone), but was still a really pleasant read.
This Loving Feeling – 3/5 – I really wanted to like this story better than I did, because I really liked Samantha (Sam, of course) – she is Brad and Ben’s younger sister, so she had cropped up in the first two books, as had her ‘bad’ boyfriend, Lukas. In the story, Lukas took off six years earlier and has become a rich and famous musician since then, but now he’s back in town, and sparks are flying. Once again, this was a pleasant story that was kind of ruined with too much sex. It also felt like all their problems were resolved at about 2/3 through, and the rest of the ‘issues’ were very contrived to make the book longer. Still… pretty average read.
All in all, I don’t see myself returning to Mirror Lake, but they were perfectly fine for one-time reads and did help me while away my long August book-drought days.
The Aroma of Books 