Reviewer: Tracy Life of the Party by Kris Fletcher
Series: Calypso Falls #1
Publisher: Intermix
Publication Date: January 17th 2017
Genres: Contemporary Romance
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Jenna Elias was always the life of the party, coasting on her charm and beauty, hiding the shame of the scandal surrounding her absentee father, a corrupt politician. But the party ended all too soon with an injury that left her partially paralyzed and a husband who simply left her. Now, at age thirty, she’s back in Calypso Falls. She leads a simple existence working in her sister’s coffee shop, but Jenna misses the joy she once had in her life. Then Cole Dekker walks into the coffee shop.
As idealistic as he is sexy, the local lawyer is running for mayor of Calypso Falls. Drawn to Jenna’s quick wit and radiance, he asks her to volunteer for his campaign. As the two start working together, there’s no denying the powerful attraction they feel for each other. A desktop makeout session leads to much more. But when Jenna’s dad returns to Calypso Falls and wants to be a part of her life again, the association could spell political suicide for Cole—and the end of a once-in-a-lifetime chance at true love.
Jenna Elias Stirling Carpenter wants to leave her hometown and all the people in it behind. Well, ok, there are some people, like her family, that she doesn’t want to leave behind but she feels she has no other choice. She wants to be in the PR business but can’t catch a break with Calypso Falls because of a couple of things. First was twenty years earlier when her father was mayor and was corrupt. He faked his own death to avoid going to prison, which he eventually did anyway when the truth came out. The second was that she was married and a trophy wife to a complete bastard until an accident made her not so perfect any longer and she was dumped. She wants nothing to do with the Elias (birth name) or Stirling (married name) names any longer and has changed her name to Carpenter. She plans on finishing her degree and then moving towns where they don’t know her and won’t recognize her previous names.
Her plans are great but she needs to beef up her resume as she doesn’t want to put any of the charity work she did while married on it. She asks Cole Dekker, the extremely hot mayoral candidate, if she can work on his campaign but in the background. He agrees because he doesn’t believe that she is like her father and also because he finds her incredibly attractive. Their attraction can’t be denied so they secretly start an affair with the plan that it will only last until January which is when Jenna will move towns. Unfortunately life doesn’t work out the way either planned and between the mayoral race, the public’s opinion of Jenna and her father returning from prison they find that despite the fact they love each other they may not get to be together.
Life of the Party was a good book that definitely kept my attention. There were many parts to it that I liked and the romance was a good one.
Cole Dekker was a great guy. A good hero with a good heart. He was a lawyer turned politician but he was honest to the public (well, except for his relationship with Jenna). I really liked him a lot and thought he was the perfect guy for Jenna.
Jenna finally knew what she wanted in life but it had taken her a while to get where she was. She had been in a car accident which made her not so perfect and her rat bastard husband divorced her. She was on her way to see a lawyer about a divorce when the accident occurred but still – to be thrown aside like that? I wanted to reach through the book and whack the ex-husband even though he never actually appeared on page. Lol She was finally getting a degree but wanted out of Calypso Falls even though she really loved it there. Her name “Elias” almost made people cringe when they heard it so I kind of understood.
My issues with the book were few but kind of big. The book is entitled Life of the Party and Jenna was supposedly this huge party girl who drank and changed her major constantly when she was younger. We never actually saw any of this nor did anyone ever really mention it except for mentions of Vodka. She didn’t act like a party girl so it was hard to connect who she was now to who she was then. Also, the accident was skimmed over and that was a huge part of her life. The whole blurb made me believe that the partying and the accident (supposedly partially paralyzed but that was only mentioned in one sentence of the book) played huge roles in this book and Jenna’s life but that wasn’t the case. While I liked the story I felt completely misled and that annoyed and frustrated me.
Despite my issues with the book I still enjoyed it and loved reading about Cole and Jenna getting together.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5