Author: Lauren Connolly
Year published: 2024
Category: Adult fiction (romance)
Pages: 432 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): USA (PA, WA, DE, AL, AK, SD, ND, AZ, ID, KS)
Summary: Maddie Sanderson would be proud to honor her older brother’s dying wish, that she scatters his ashes over eight destinations that the adventurous 29-year-old never got to visit before he died from cancer. But in his will, Josh assigned her an impossible partner to help complete the mission—Dominic Perry. Seriously, if Maddie weren’t already at her brother's funeral, she would have killed him for this.
Sure, Dom was Josh’s life-long best friend. He’s also the infuriating man who broke Maddie’s heart back when she was naïve enough to give it to him. But since Dom insists on following the rules and Josh didn’t leave much room for Maddie to argue the matter, they embark together on a series of farewell trips that span thousands of miles, exploring new places and revisiting their complicated history along the way.
After a snowstorm leads to a shared bed, Maddie starts to wonder if her brother might be matchmaking from the grave. But when grief also reopens old wounds between them, Maddie will need more than Josh’s ghostly guidance to trust Dom again.
Review: Enemies to Lovers who had a fling in high school, a dead brother, traveling around the US and fulling said brother's final wishes, this all makes for a fun romance (except the dead brother, that's sad, but he dies before the book begins).
I really enjoyed this novel and finished it in just a few days. Both Dom and Maddie are likable characters, they obviously belong together (hello, it's a contemporary romance!), and it's easy to see why she is gun-shy given their past fling. I haven't read a book where a dead loved one has left letters with tasks to complete, but these were fun adventures. The locations made sense, the tasks were thoughtful and pushed the characters a bit outside their comfort zones without being dangerous.
The bits in between the tasks were also good. We learn about Maddie much more than Dom (she is the narrator), her childhood with an awful mother and grandmother, her love for her brother, the support she receives from family friends, and her current best friends.
I was happy to be on the ride with Maddie and Dom, enjoyed reading about the locations (in states that I haven't been in real life to so that was fun. It made me want to go on a road trip), and was pleased with the way the storyline played out.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Literary Escapes--AL, AK, ND, ID, KS
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