Leila Brandt lost her husband—her perfect match—to cancer five years ago. Now, still single and squarely in her mid-fifties, she copes with her profound loneliness by channeling her energies into her interior design business and close circle of grown children, family, and friends. Her formula works until she meets Ayden Doyle, an arrogant but hypnotically appealing architect, at a new client’s … home. Ayden has been divorced for twenty-five years and is open about his aversion to commitment and the family obligations that go along with long-term relationships. He’s also had significant experience with wooing women, and Leila gets to know firsthand that he’s very good at it. A little too good. Still, despite her reservations, the astounding chemistry between them is impossible to ignore, and she finds herself beginning to fall under his spell. Ayden, meanwhile, finds Leila unlike the younger women who have occupied his time in the past, and is drawn to her intellectual depth, style, creativity, sense of humor, and sexual allure. Leopards may not change their spots—but if anyone can tame the beast, it will be Leila.
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This is an entertaining romance about finding love after 50. I always enjoy reading a book with older characters – the problems of life aren’t just for the 30 year olds as much of the current writing wants you to believe.
Leila is in her mid-fifties and she’s been a widow for 5 years since her husband died from cancer. He was the love of her life and it took her a long time to recover from his death but now her daughter and best friend have decided that it’s time for her to find a man – not necessarily to marry again but for companionship – to have someone to go to dinner and parties with. To make this happen, they give her a birthday gift of an appointment with a professional matchmaker. Her response to this gift was between ‘appreciated and infuriated’ but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. After extensive questions, the matchmaker gives her the name and bios of three men that she feels would be good matches. She’s shocked that one of the men on the list is an architect that she had recently met on a new design consultation. She finally decides to go on a date with Ayden, the architect, who both interests her and infuriates her. The rest of the novel is full of love and rejection and reconciliation and the major question is whether Leila and Ayden will get their ‘happily ever after’.
I think that this author has a lot of potential to be an excellent romance writer and I look forward to her future books.
Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
A heartwarming entertaining novel of a middle aged widow who is relatively happy with her life, albeit perhaps a little lonely at times. It has been 5 years since Leila Brandt’s husband died and her daughter and best friend decide that she has been alone long enough. So, for her birthday they sign her up for a matchmaking service. Perhaps fate had a hand in matching Leila to her possible dating partners, but one of the men is Ayden Doyle, a contractor who she recently met through her interior decorating business.
Leila and Doyle begin dating, but for one of them their emotional relationship doesn’t mean the same as to the other. A decent book of hope and second chances. Thank you Netgalley and Spark Press for an Advanced Reader Copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book and the comments are my honest opinion.
Leila, a widow of 5 years, has an interior design business with her best friend, Michelle. Ayden is an architect and carpenter/woodworker/sculptor. Except for a brief marriage in his early twenties, he has been single and pretty much a player for most of his adult life. This is a sweet, sexy (but not explicit) romance about a couple of middle-aged people who meet, date and fall in love. It covers the adjustments, assurances, and compromises between a settled widow with grown children and about to become a grandmother and a man who has never had to answer to anyone but himself. I enjoyed watching the relationship develop between Leila and Ayden, although I felt the book was slightly more clinical than emotional, which made it hard to connect with the characters.