Review: My Kind of Wonderful by Jill Shalvis

Posted January 12, 2016 by Rowena in Reviews | 4 Comments

Review: My Kind of Wonderful by Jill ShalvisReviewer: Rowena
My Kind of Wonderful by Jill Shalvis
Series: Cedar Ridge #2
Also in this series: Second Chance Summer, My Kind of Wonderful, Nobody but You, Nobody But You
Publisher: Headline
Publication Date: December 22nd 2015
Pages: 384
Add It: Goodreads
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three-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Fans of Jill Mansell, Debbie Macomber, Nora Roberts and Marie Force will fall head over heels for the new Cedar Ridge series from New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis, featuring her trademark gift for humour, warmth and romance.

If you'd been given a second chance at life, what's the first thing you would do?

Now that artist Bailey is finally healthy for the first time in forever, she's living life to the full. First on her wishlist is skiing in the Rockies - at least it will be if she can get down the mountain in one piece...

Luckily, a ski patrolling Prince Charming comes to Bailey's aid. Learning that her mysterious rescuer, Hudson Kincaid, is also the subject of the mural she's been commissioned to paint in Cedar Ridge, Bailey is intrigued.

As she uncovers the real man behind Hudson's strong, silent facade, Bailey begins to realise that the life of adventure she has always dreamed of could be closer to home than she ever imagined.

Want more warm, funny romance? Don't miss the first Cedar Ridge novel, Second Chance Summer, visit spellbinding Lucky Harbor or experience some Animal Magnetism in Sunshine, Idaho in Jill's other unforgettable series.

My Kind of Wonderful is the second book in the Cedar Ridge series by Jill Shalvis and in this book, we got Hudson Kincaid’s story.

Hudson is a man with a million jobs. He takes care of everyone around him, including his employees, siblings and his mother and I think he kept himself so busy so that he didn’t give himself time to worry about the brother missing from his life. His twin brother, Jacob. You see, Hudson and Jacob are half-siblings to the other Kincaids (Gray, Aidan and Makenna) and before they all became the Brady Bunch, Hudson and Jacob were on their own. They took care of their mother because she lived in a fantasy world and for as long as they could remember, it was them against the world. They had plans but when they moved to Cedar Ridge, to be close to their new-found family, Hudson forgot all about the plan to skip town and see the world once they turned eighteen.

Hudson liked being a part of a family unit. He liked his siblings and wanted to be around them. He wanted to be accepted and wanted a stable life where he didn’t have to worry about putting food on the table and he wanted help in taking care of his Mom. He got all of that when he came to Cedar Ridge and he wasn’t in a rush to leave all that behind. So after a huge blowout with Jacob, Hudson stays behind and a rift grows with each passing year that Jacob is away.

I was intrigued by Hudson’s character in the last book in this series and I was pretty excited to jump into this story and get to know him better. When he meets Bailey Moore, I thought their meet cute was…cute.

Bailey was an interesting heroine. She had non-Hodgkin lymphoma and survived to tell the story. After she gets the all-clear after her three month checkup, she’s stoked. She’s finally got a future to look forward to and she’s not about to waste it. She’s got a list of things she wants to do and she’s going to do them. First up? Paint a mural for the ski resort run by the Kincaids.

Hudson and Bailey circled each other for a little bit and I’ve never encountered a heroine quite like Bailey before. She wasn’t sick anymore but she was still a bit frail and she was regaining her confidence in herself and I liked her attitude toward her scars and her past. I loved that she wasn’t embarrassed to face Hudson. I liked her.

The romance between Hudson and Bailey was, I’m not quite sure what. I liked the both of them but I can’t say that I was in love with their coming together…with their story. I don’t know what it was but their romance fell a bit flat for me. It felt like I’d read this story before and the more I dug in, the more I felt it. I get that romances recycle stories and plots but it’s normally the characters that can sell me on a story and while I liked Hudson and Bailey, I didn’t absolutely love either of them.

I’ll definitely read the next book in the series but a little of my excitement is down. This book had Shalvis’ standard humor and cuteness but I was left wanting more from the romance and the book itself so I’m giving this one a 3 out of 5. There was enough to keep me satisfied but not enough to make me fall in absolute love.

Grade: 3 out of 5

three-stars


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4 responses to “Review: My Kind of Wonderful by Jill Shalvis

  1. Sharlene Wegner

    Thanks for the review! I just won this one & have to get to the other books in the series first. Soon!

  2. We’ve discussed this one, Wena, so I don’t have much to say. It’s one thing to recycle plots and elements of your books… The issue with Ms Shalvis’ books though is that she’s recycling the romance itself. There’s just so much books I can read about two people getting together to have a fling and it turning permanent 🙁 And I’d say that Ms Shalvis uses that 75% of the time 🙁

  3. Jen

    I keep hesitating to start this series because it sounds so much like her Wilder series. Am I wrong on that? I love love love that series so much, I don’t want to be disappointed by this one!

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