Rowena’s review of The Perfect Match (Blue Heron #2) by Kristan Higgins.
What if the perfect match is a perfect surprise? Honor Holland has just been unceremoniously rejected by her lifelong crush. And now—a mere three weeks later—Mr. Perfect is engaged to her best friend. But resilient, reliable Honor is going to pick herself up, dust herself off and get back out there or she would if dating in Manningsport, New York, population 715, wasn’t easier said than done.
Charming, handsome British professor Tom Barlow just wants to do right by his unofficial stepson, Charlie, but his visa is about to expire. Now Tom must either get a green card or leave the States—and leave Charlie behind.
In a moment of impulsiveness, Honor agrees to help Tom with a marriage of convenience—and make her ex jealous in the process. But juggling a fiancé, hiding out from her former best friend and managing her job at the family vineyard isn’t easy. And as sparks start to fly between Honor and Tom, they might discover that their pretend relationship is far too perfect to be anything but true love .
Kristan Higgins writes great contemporary romances that I have enjoyed in the past so I knew that I would enjoy this one as well. She writes the cute and fluffy contemporary romances that I know and love. This is the second book in the Blue Heron series and it follows Honor Holland as she bungles her way toward that happy ending everyone is always striving toward.
When we met Honor in her sister Faith’s book, she was seeing someone in private and she was really hard to like. She didn’t have the best relationship with her sister and so for me, it was hard to like her. I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t at all looking forward to reading her book but then I thought, “It’s Kristan Higgins, of course she’ll make it good for me.”
And she did.
In this book, we find out that Honor was having an affair with her best friend Brogan. She also had a huge crush on him and had one for a long time but when she proposes to him and he turns her down, she’s devastated. What does a girl do when she gets turned down by the guy she’s had a crush on for most of her life? She runs to her girl best friend, that’s what she does. And Honor does that. And while Honor is dealing with her broken heart, weeks later, she finds out that her best friend is engaged to the man who broke her heart.
So yeah, that sucked.
She cuts Brogan and Dana out of her life and decides to move on. Her grandmother tries to set her up with one of her friend’s nephews, but Honor isn’t expecting much. She’s expecting someone old, who smells like mothballs but when handsome British professor Tom Barlow shows up, things are looking up. But then he opens his mouth and things take a turn for the worse. She’s not at all impressed by him and is ready to cross him out of her life forever until he comes to her rescue when she needed him to.
After getting to know him, Honor finds out that Tom is about to be deported and his unofficial stepson who has two guardians that don’t care for him, a dead Mom and an absentee father will be left all alone, Honor offers to marry Tom so he can get a green card and stay close to Charlie.
The whole idea is pretty crazy by Higgins pulls it off with her usual humor and I enjoyed the emotional ride she took us on. Honor was so much more than what I saw in The Best Man and she turned out to be pretty awesome. She had a great relationship with her family, she was getting a lot closer with her sister (the relationship wasn’t so great in the first book) and she was so good to her grandparents. She was a solid heroine, someone that was strong and took care of those around her.
Tom wasn’t your typical, perfect hero. He didn’t have this sexy job like firefighter, cop, sports star. He was a teacher but holy goodness was he a sexy one. And he came equipped with a British accent so I ate it up. He was far from perfect though because there were times when I wanted to wring his neck because of the things he said to Honor and the way he handled certain things that cropped up in the book but in the end, I adored him. He was perfect for Honor and I was glad when they finally got it together and committed to each other…for real.
This book was filled with all of the things that I like in a Kristan Higgins book. It was an enjoyable story that I think fans of contemporary fans will enjoy. I recommend this one for sure.
Grade: 4 out of 5
This book is available from HQN Books. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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