Millions of men in the world, and she had to fall for the one who’s off limits.Julie has lived next door to the Martins her entire life, but the days of backyard barbecues and lake vacations ended six years ago. That’s when the feud began. Now, returning to her hometown for the holidays, she has to face not only her parents’ exhausting bitterness, but the agonizing realization that the … irresistible guy who just asked her out is in fact a Martin, and therefore off limits.
Left to choose between family loyalty and a man who just might be perfect for her, Julie decides she can date Drew as long as they keep things under wraps. But secrets have a way of coming out and love for her family may require the sacrifice of what her heart wants most.
Inspired by Romeo and Juliet (but without all the death), the sweet, romantic story of Julie and Drew’s relationship will make you laugh out loud on one page and make your heart ache on the next. It’s a story about loving family, loving yourself, and loving your soulmate—and choosing which one to put first.
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I am pretty stingy with my 5 stars. I like to hold them back for those books that hit me, make me feel deeply and always end completely. Annette speaks my language, the girl knows how to tell a deep story and I feel it. It doesn’t matter what she writes, if it’s a princess or a daughter of a drug dealer I get it and hear what she is trying to say. In this book she did not hold back, she shouts it. This book had the power of truth behind it, and I LOVED that. As someone who’s parents could not get over their own hurt and pain long enough to see what it was doing to their children I got this book in a deep way. I have tried to confront my parents I’ve tried to say all these things! I am so glad this book ended the way it did, I felt like I got a piece of my own happy ending. I feel relief and peace, this book put into story form what I have felt towards my parents for years! I wish I had my own chainsaw!!
Read it. It’s so much more than a contemporary romance or a Romeo and Juliet retelling. It’s a modern day story of the power of love through boundaries and loving ourselves and others more then the anger. Thank you Annette!!!
A more healthy Romeo and Juliet with a Happily Ever After. My favorite thing about Annette Larsen’s writing is the emotion. As I read her stories I always feel every tug and pull of the character’s heart as if it was my own. All her stories are beautiful and this one was no different. I always come away feeling more.
Clandestine relationship
-‘Of course. OF COURSE he was a Martin. Because the world hated me. Because I couldn’t possibly just meet a super nice, funny, cute guy and actually be able to date him. That would be crazy town. And where did he get off being irritated with me? Why did he act like he had a right to be mad at my family? We weren’t the ones who blew up the stupid business; they were. I’d never seen a guy go from charmer to jerk so quickly. This sucked. This really, really sucked.’-
From best friends, neighbours, and business partners, to bitter enemies – the Martins and the Hanes don’t speak to each other. Ever. There’s bad blood between them and their children are paying the price. But when attraction comes between their children, Julie and Drew, will the families finally put up a white flag and restore peace between them? Or will the rivalry rage on? Caught between a rock and a hard place, between loyalty and wanting to put the past behind them, the Martin and Hanes children aren’t sure how to stop the feud.
-‘“I know why our parents are fighting. But why are we fighting?”’-
This is one of THOSE books. You know the ones. The kind you start reading in the evening and quickly get so absorbed into the storyline that before you know it, it’s late and you have to be up at six the next morning for work, but you just need to know what happens next so you keep reading and before you know it it’s nearly morning already and you wonder how the heck you’re going to get through the workday… yeah. It’s one of THOSE books. So watch out. It’s dangerously awesome. I loved it. Fast-paced, clean, sucks you in. Go for it. You won’t regret it. (And for the record, I totally fell for Drew!)
Compulsively readable, G-rated, New Adult, “Romeo and Juliet” romance
Julie Hanes is almost 21 and is on the verge of completing her college degree a year early, after three years of concentrated study. Drew Martin is 25, has finished his college degree, and has been gainfully employed for the past four years as the manager of a small business that is located in the same college town as Julie—without either of them knowing all that time that they have been living in the same town. What they do know is that their families have been next-door neighbors since Julie and Drew were children, their families used to be very close friends, and her parents have bitterly hated the whole Martin family for the past six years. The feud started when the FBI and SEC began an investigation of Eddie Martin, Julie’s father’s former business partner. It destroyed their previously successful partnership managing a real estate investment trust, and legal fees bankrupted both families. Without any discussion of the matter with Eddie, to get his side of the story, Julie’s father and mother cut themselves off completely from the Martins at the time of the investigation. They decided that the whole situation was entirely Eddie’s fault, that he is a criminal, and everyone in his family is tainted by his supposed criminal tendencies—even though Eddie was never indicted of any crime. Julie’s parents have continued that hate-based separation ever since, even though it has not been easy to accomplish. Neither family could afford to pack up and move away from their next-door-neighbor situation, both families attend the same church, and the various Hanes and Martins have inevitably crossed each other’s paths quite frequently over the years in the small town in which they live.
As their definition of “family loyalty,” Julie’s parents have demanded that their two daughters and their son join them in their endless, seething hatred and resentment of the whole Martin family, and when Drew and Hannah begin to date, it is a ticking time bomb of a situation, waiting to explode.
Things I really liked about this book:
1. It is very well written and quite compulsively readable, as the phrase goes, as much for the family melodrama as for the romance. I could not put it down once I started reading it, and I stayed up much too late last night finishing it.
2. I really liked Drew and Julie, as individuals and as a couple. They are both admirable human beings, equally hard-working, responsible, and kind.
3. Though this is a New Adult romance, unlike the common run of this romance subgenre, it is not set on a college campus. There is no drinking, no wild parties, and no sex of any kind, only kissing. However, in spite of its G-rating, there is plenty of strong emotional chemistry between Drew and Hannah in this romance novel. The author fully convinced me of the Prime Directive of any good romance: That the lives of these two lovers would be forever blighted if they did not end up together.
4. I liked very much Julie’s close relationships with her younger sister Hannah and her female best friend.
5. There is no other-woman/other-man drama (AKA no “cheating”) between Julie and Drew, and there is a satisfying HEA.
Things I had slight issues with in this book:
1. As someone who has personally attended many different churches in small towns over the course of my (long!) life, I found it a bit unbelievable that, with the whole town knowing about the vindictive bitterness of Julie’s father, and the fact that both the Hanes family and the Martin family have attended the same church for decades, that the pastor and elders of their mutual church would not have, years before, staged an intervention and mediated between these two men, such that Eddie Martin would have had a chance to tell his side of the story to Julie’s father, and thereby peaceably have brought the feud to an end. Though this book is not, per se, a “Christian romance,” it does not speak very highly for the effectiveness of the Christian religion as being able to heal hearts and minds, even though Christianity’s main focuses are the extremely relevant concepts of, “love thy neighbor,” forgiveness, and repentance.
2. The story is written in first-person point of view, with only Julie’s perspective offered. The author states on her website that she never writes from a male point of view. This is unfortunate. First person POV is virtually never used in the adult romance genre, though it is typical of young adult fiction, murder mysteries and chick lit. Adult romance is traditionally written in close-third POV, with alternating POV of the heroine and hero. This convention allows the reader to become much closer to the romantic hero than is ever possible with only the heroine’s POV.
3. The setting of a small town is never clearly described as to the town a whole, only a few generic, Anytown type locales, such as some restaurants and department stores. As a result, the town never came into focus for me.
I rate this book as follows:
Heroine: 4 stars
Hero: 5 stars
Subcharacters: 4 stars
Romance Plot: 4 stars
Family Drama: 3 stars
Writing: 4 stars
Overall: 4 stars
Annette K Larsen weaves so much depth into her stories. Each one is a five star read.
I loved reading Julie and Drew’s story. How the actions of their parents effected the children was written with so much feeling. It truly shows how anger and resentment can spread and ruin people’s lives.
The connection between Julie and Drew was sweet and swoony!
I was rooting for them from the moment they met.
Like her other books….this is in the reread category. Thanks for sharing your talent Annette
Wow. Just wow. This is such an amazing story!! It gave me all the feels and I didn’t want to stop reading! I laughed at the banter between Julie and Drew, and sighed at all their dreamy kisses. I was upset at Julie’s grudge-bearing family, on her behalf, and I even cried near the end when Julie was so completely devastated and heartbroken. Annette’s writing is seriously that good: evoking genuine tears on behalf of a fictional character. I felt like I was right there in the thick of it while I was reading, and was insanely invested in how Drew and Julie were going to achieve their happily ever after. I absolutely LOVED this book! It’s right up there with all her other wonderful books on my “favorites” shelf.