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Title: Mermaid Inn
Author: Jenny Holiday
Sub-genre: Contemporary
Trope(s): Second chance romance, small town, childhood friends
Le sigh. I freaking love Jenny Holiday. I was trying to come up with a good term for how her books always hit me in the feels, but all I could think of was she makes my heart squish. Every time. Even with tropes that aren’t my favorite, she always reels me in. I absolutely loved her Bridesmaids Behaving Badly series, and I have been anxiously awaiting the release of this new series (which I hope has twenty books, minimum).
In Mermaid Inn, we meet Eve, who spent her summers with her great aunt in Matchmaker Bay, helping her run her mermaid themed inn. When her great aunt passes away, Eve inherits the inn and initially plans to sell it, only to be told she has to keep it for at least a year. Eve has no desire to stay in the small lakeside town for a year, for one main reason: the boy who broke her heart. Sawyer and Eve were childhood friends who started dating as teenagers. When Eve considered giving up her college education and dreams of being a librarian in order to stay in town with Sawyer, he pushed her away. Eve was devastated and spent the next ten years avoiding Matchmaker Bay. Once she is back in town, she decides to renovate the inn during her forced one year ownership so she can hopefully make enough money on the sale to pay off her student loans before returning to Toronto to accept her dream job. But she finds herself becoming more and more attached to the people of the bay, including Sawyer, and has to decide what her true life goals are.
Guys. This one tugged all the heart strings. I don’t usually love second chance romance, but this one totally worked for me. I don’t usually love small town vibes, but this one totally worked for me. Jenny is magic and she can make me fall in love with any trope and any characters and it really almost isn’t fair how good she is. She just makes me feel the emotions of the characters like not a lot of other authors do. I felt Eve’s pain and her hope and her regrets and her fears. I felt Sawyer’s longing and heartbreak. I LOVED all of the side characters and am super excited to read their stories next. I loved the town, I loved the inn (who doesn’t love mermaids?), I loved everything about this book. It made my heart happy and squishy.
Overall Rating: 5 stars baby!