I spend quite a bit of money on books. (I know…you’re shocked.) For authors I enjoy, I will pre-order new releases and pay a premium for previous releases I haven’t read. In some cases, I will buy the hard copy for my bookcase and the e-book to read on my Kindle. I generally don’t wait for the discounts or the freebies in those cases. For authors I’m not familiar with, however, I have some self-imposed rules:

Rule #1: If I don’t know the author at all, I will look for free or discounted downloads.
Rule #2: I always check the reviews, and if the top 75% or so aren’t in the 4- and 5-star range, I will pass.
Rule #3: If the book is part of a series, it must be a stand-alone and, preferably, the first in the series. No cliffhangers!
Rule #4: It should be at least 300 pages, or it is unlikely to have the character and story development I enjoy.

These rules have served me well over the years. I have discovered some really awesome authors that keep me entertained, and I continue to buy their books as they release new ones. I’ve made exceptions to the rules when someone with similar tastes recommends something and, more recently, since I joined The Creepy Book Club. If I want to participate in the Zoom calls about the book of the month, I kind of have to read the book.

When I select NetGalley books to review, I don’t consider length, and I don’t look at the reviews prior to requesting them. I look at the cover and read the description, and if a book sounds like something I will enjoy, I request it. Occasionally, I receive an e-mail inviting me to review a NetGalley title. I always check those, and most of the time, I will download them. There have been only a handful of titles that I have not downloaded when suggested, and it’s usually been because it’s a genre I don’t typically read.

There are also times when I’ll request an advance review copy from one of my favorite authors, and I’ll still pre-order the book. I just want the review copy because I can’t wait to read it, and I want to be able to review it before the publication date. 😉 And there are times I request a review copy and I’m not approved, and then I just have to pre-order the book and wait…and wait…and wait like everyone else. The most recent in that category is Ali Brady’s The Comeback Summer, which I pre-ordered in February for its May 9 release (blog post scheduled for June 4).

I’m in a lot of reading/author/book groups on Facebook. (Again, I know you’re shocked.) As a result, I also see a lot of ads from authors who I don’t follow. (Gotta love the algorithm.) I saw an ad for the book I reviewed below. The cover was attractive. The description was appealing. It seemed like a fun, light read, and I was just coming off of two Creepy Book Club selections and preparing to start a third. It was the first in a series, it was free on Amazon, and it seemed like a nice palette cleanser.

But as I started reading, I wasn’t getting any back story, and the characters were all over the place. It was moving way too fast to get to the second-chance part of the romance. I went back to Amazon to read the description and check the reviews. The description was what I remembered, and 80% of reviews came in at 4 and 5 stars.

And then I happened to look at the page count. I didn’t consider my page count rule when I saw the ad. A lot of readers love the quick read, something you can crank through in a day at the beach. But I know myself. I need at least 300 pages…even for freebies. It’s rare for me to enjoy anything shorter than that.

It’s a nice story…and this author is not for me. Next time, I will definitely follow the rules.

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Book Review

⭐⭐
2 Stars for The One for Me by Rachel Hanna

208 pages
Publisher: Rachel Hanna
Publication Date: May 30, 2021
Purchased on Amazon.

Publisher’s Description

He’s standing on her front porch…

She’d never planned to see him again.

Jenna’s life is a mess. Foreclosure notice in hand, her daughter depending on her, she has to make a way.

He can’t believe his eyes.

She left him in a literal cloud of dust all those years ago.

Will he fall for her all over again?

Will hearts break or mend in this clean beach romance?

************

Main Characters:

• Jenna – 35 years old, recently divorced after her husband cheated on her, lives just outside January Cove, wanted to be an artist but currently working as a waitress
• Kyle – also 35 years old, never married, real estate investor who specializes in purchasing and flipping homes in foreclosure
• Kaitlyn – Jenna’s five-year-old daughter
• Becca – Jenna’s neighbor; her daughter Lila is Kaitlyn’s best friend

The One for Me is the first installment of Rachel Hanna’s January Cove series. Set in the small town of January Cove on the coast of Georgia, this clean second-chance romance tells the story of Kyle and Jenna. High school sweethearts, they were convinced they would spend the rest of their lives together. But Jenna’s parents didn’t approve because Kyle and his four siblings were being raised by a single mother who struggled to make ends meet. They wanted a better and more stable life for Jenna, so they pushed her to make other choices when she went to college.

All these years later, Jenna finds herself living just outside of January Cove, divorced from a man who cheated on her, and raising her five-year-old daughter alone. Having long given up on being an artist, Jenna works as a waitress at a local diner, struggles to pay the bills, and is five months behind on the mortgage. And the icing on the cake…she comes home from Kaitlyn’s school one afternoon to a notice that her home has been foreclosed on, purchased by an investor, and she has to be out by noon the next day.

Of course, readers know that Kyle will be the one who purchases Jenna’s home and they will get back together at some point. This is a second-chance romance, after all.

I had hoped to enjoy this book, but I had a lot of problems with it. One of the biggest challenges is that it’s short for a full-length novel at just over 200 pages. Without the opportunity to give a lot of back story, the characters fall pretty flat. We know nothing of Jenna and Kyle’s relationship in high school, nothing of Jenna’s relationship with her husband except for the end. We even get very little of Jenna’s relationship with her parents and why they disapproved so much of Kyle.

There’s also the fact that Jenna and Kyle need time to rekindle and rebuild their relationship. Again, a longer novel would give the author the chance to develop this piece of the story over a reasonable period of time. I seems like only a couple of weeks, and it’s way too fast. Becca also concocts a manipulative plan that feels very much like middle school. And I think the author knows this because Jenna says, “That sounds very middle schoolish.” Jenna and Kyle are 35, well beyond the point of playing the jealousy game.

I made a bunch of notes on minor items throughout the book as well that didn’t sit right. Kyle’s mother was able to take care of five kids without any income for a year because of a “small” life insurance policy after her husband died in a car accident. That had to have been a heck of an insurance policy…definitely not small. Kaitlyn has an “almost toothless grin” even though she’s five. And apparently the fact that the town gossip is fat is relevant enough to comment twice on how she had to squeeze herself into and out of a booth at a diner. 🤨

I couldn’t enjoy this one, and I won’t be reading the rest of the series.

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