Title: Zora Books Her Happy Ever After
Author: Taj McCoy
Genre: Romance
Rating: 2.0 out of 5
Zora has committed every inch of her life to establishing her thriving DC bookstore, making it into a pillar of the community, and she just hasn’t had time for romance. But when a mystery author she’s been crushing on for years agrees to have an event at her store, she starts to rethink her priorities. Lawrence is every bit as charming as she imagined, even if his understanding of his own books seems just a bit shallow. When he asks her out after his reading, she’s almost elated enough to forget about the grumpy guy who sat next to her making snide comments all evening. Apparently the grouch is Lawrence’s best friend, Reid, but she can’t imagine what kind of friendship that must be. They couldn’t be more different.
But as she starts seeing Lawrence, and spending more and more time with Reid, Zora finds first impressions can be deceiving. Reid is smart and thoughtful—he’s also interested. After years of avoiding dating, she suddenly has two handsome men competing for her affection. But even as she struggles to choose between them, she can’t shake the feeling that they’re both hiding something—a mystery she’s determined to solve before she can find her HEA.
This started off good: I loved Zora herself and all of her ambition and drive to give back to her community. The friendship between her, Emma, and grandma Marion was fantastic! The eye candy—Lawrence and Reid—wasn’t bad, either.
But then I realized just how hypocritical Zora, her granny, and the other characters were. You can’t make a big production of praying before every meal and mention God in conversation—and think it’s okay to be sleeping with two different guys you barely know. You can’t have Zora’s family be so proud of her and encourage her to live out her own dreams and goals—and have granny beat her over the head with mentions of great-grandkids every other breath. And Zora, who is supposedly so self-aware and alert to the tricks of guys in the dating scene….notices the massive red flags both these guys are throwing up—and chooses to believe they’re not actually red flags at all. Um…what? So, despite starting off so promisingly, this really should have been a DNF.
Taj McCoy is from Oakland. Zora Books Her Happily Ever After is her new novel.
(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/MIRA in exchange for an honest review.)
Tomorrow Is Another Day 