A week before her best friend’s wedding in Florida, Gia is stranded in New York with the wedding dress. Also with her is Bennett, the best man at the same wedding, who is carrying the wedding rings. A winter storm has cancelled flights for the next few days, so they decide to road trip the journey instead.

I love Jenny Holiday’s Bridesmaids Behaving Badly series, and I’m sad that Three Little Words is the final title. I absolutely love this quartet of friends — Jane, Wendy, Elise and Gia — and their unswerving loyalty and devotion to each other makes me nostalgic for my best friends back in the Philippines. Jenny Holiday is so good at depicting female friendship, and I love that the climaxes of all the books involve all the friends (and in this book, even the significant others from earlier in the series!) coming together to support the main character and nudge them towards their happily ever afters.

Jenny Holiday is also extremely gifted at combining sexy with sweet with funny, and somehow manages to craft a very emotional, complex, moving romance that still maintains a lighthearted, somewhat comedic feel throughout. Gia Gallo isn’t the type of heroine I usually relate to — she’s tall, super beautiful, and a successful model — but Holiday makes her feel so real that I can almost see myself in her while reading.

Gia is a few days away from turning 30, and beginning to realize that she may soon become too old for the modelling jobs she enjoys. As the story begins, she has just completed a photo shoot where she couldn’t fit into the clothes assigned to her, so she had to wear a less fashionable design intended for older women, while her original outfit was reassigned to a younger, thinner model. First: awesome that Holiday calls out the fashion industry for designing for young and thin women. Gia’s turning 30 and wears either a size 2 or a size 4, so she’s definitely not old nor plus-size, so it’s telling that she’s already struggling to meet the fashion industry’s standards.

But also, while I may not be able to relate to the struggles of being a model, I can certainly relate to being 30 and having mini-crises of faith about my career choices. I can definitely relate to Gia’s fear that the one thing she’s always been good at (in her case, looking beautiful) may no longer be good enough, and that she can be so easily replaced by equally beautiful rivals who have their whole careers still ahead of them. Gia’s afraid she may have reached the pinnacle of her career, and has no idea what she can do next, and more to the point, what she’s actually capable and qualified to do next. As with so many Jenny Holiday books, I read this, and feel so heard.

I also love Bennett, the chef with a checkered past and a heart of gold, who wants to someday open up a community kitchen to feed persons living in poverty. Living in New York City makes it difficult to save up enough, so for now, he runs a Pay-What-You-Can night every Thursday at his five-star restaurant, and basically gives away fancy, five-star meals for close-to-free. Like, how can you not love this man?

I especially love how kind and caring he is with Gia. In particular, when she admits to him that she “has issues with food,” he doesn’t judge her or get on her case about eating more, but rather simply cooks delicious meals and lets her eat (or not eat) as she chooses. I also love how he sees potential in her that she doesn’t realize herself, and knows how kickass she can be at a career shift.

And finally, the best part about Bennett is that for all his do-gooder traits, he’s not perfect. He has a wild past that has estranged him from his parents, and so a lot of his good deeds are motivated by somewhat selfish reasons, as he tries to assuage his guilt over stuff he’s done before. Gia and Bennett help make each other better, and are super sweet together. They also have incredible chemistry. I’ve always loved Jenny Holiday’s steamy scenes, and the ones in this book are fantastic.

Three Little Words is probably my second favourite of the series (my all-time favourite is still the novella Merrily Ever After). It’s a wonderful, fitting conclusion, and brings back all the characters we’ve come to know and love, while still giving Gia and Bennett their full due at a love story.

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Thank you to Forever Romance and Netgalley for an egalley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Two young women are driving home when they are assaulted at a gas station and driven off into a river. One dies, and the other’s condition brings back bad memories for her father, a former sheriff who investigated the death of another young woman at the same river ten years ago. At the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to convict the man accused of the crime, and so the sheriff had to let him go, and now with his daughter’s life similarly endangered, he must confront the situation he put that other father through, all those years ago.

The Current is a story about the violence done against women, and the effect of this violence on the men in their lives. Johnston takes us deep into the emotional journeys of two of the fathers, their guilt at being unable to protect their children and their rage at the men who dared to hurt them. The book also shows us the law enforcement officials involved in both cases, and how they confront their own complicity in allowing such acts to occur. We also meet the young man accused of the crime ten years ago, whose life basically fell apart, and who continues to insist on his innocence. We do get the perspective of the young woman who survived the present day incident, as she launches her own investigation of the matter, but it’s the fathers’ emotions that seem the most raw, and leave the most impact.

Johnston also has a lyrical writing style. His language casts a soft focus light on even the most violent scenes, turning away before it can get too graphic. The pacing is slow, which works for the language, and the book somehow reminds me of Jeffrey Eugenides’ Virgin Suicides in that it tackles some pretty horrific content, but in a way that feels almost gentle in its execution. A climactic chase scene on the ice feels almost melancholy rather than urgent; while we see the heightened emotions of the characters, the overall feeling is one of desolation rather than fear.

The Current is a well-written book, with a tragic story. There’s a part where a sheriff asks why he didn’t know about something, and the young woman responds something to the effect that it’s always only girls on the lake. And there’s certainly that sense of inevitability and injustice in this book, and a desire on the part of some of the characters to do better.

Giveaway

Thanks to the publisher, we have a hardcover copy of The Current up for grabs. Click on the image below for your chance to win!

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Blog Tour Schedule

Check out the rest of the blog tour below!

Jan. 21 – Literary Treats
Jan. 22 – Mickey Reads
Jan. 23 – Fab Book Reviews
Jan. 24 – nichi.i_readpastmybedtime
Jan. 25 – Novelties

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Thanks to Thomas Allen for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What does a man do when he gets out of jail? For Jack Palace, he plunges right back into a life of crime. Not because he wants to, but because he has to repay a debt to a gangster named Tommy, who saved his life in prison. Once the debt is repaid, Jack would like to retire completely from the criminal underworld and settle down to a peaceful life with his new bartender girlfriend Suzanne. Yard Dog is the first book in the Jack Palace series, so it’s probably not a spoiler to say that things don’t quite go as Jack plans.

I’ll be honest: when I received this book for review from the publisher, I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy it. The whole ‘ex-criminal tries to go straight but gets sucked back in’ genre isn’t really my type of crime fiction. Cozy mysteries, grip lit thrillers, and Agatha Christie are more my speed. Still, as with all the books I receive for my blog, I decide to give it a try, and within a few pages Pasquella’s writing and fast-paced storytelling got me hooked.

From the synopsis, I was expecting a hard-boiled thriller with all the characters sounding like stereotypical tough guys. I was wrong. Pasquella’s narrative style is pretty straightforward, and he has created some really compelling characters that you just keep rooting for. I love Jack Palace. I love how badly he wants to just escape this kind of life, and how much it’s his sense of honour and morality that keep sucking him back in. I love that he’s given multiple chances to walk away, yet he chooses to dive right back into the fray simply because it’s the right thing to do.

The character of Suzanne was also a pleasant surprise. Again, from the type of story I thought this was, I was expecting either a drop-dead gorgeous damsel in distress or a drop-dead gorgeous superheroine who kicks ass and drops sarcastic one-liners without breaking a sweat. Instead, Suzanne’s a pretty complex character herself with a developed backstory that explains why she’s reluctant to hook up with Jack but decides to do so anyway. She can defend herself, but mostly because she’s smart and, because of the dangers of her job as a bartender, keeps a bat behind the counter. I also really like that she calls out a bad guy with a gun for talking to Jack about her in front of her, rather than simply addressing her directly, and more importantly, I also like that she quiets down almost immediately afterward. She demands respect, but she also doesn’t take stupid chances with her own life.

Overall, it’s an entertaining book with compelling characters, and I’m glad I gave it a go. Kudos as well to Laura Boyle, who designed the cover: it’s fantastic!

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Thank you to Dundurn Press for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.