USA Today Bestseller
New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis does it once again with a heartfelt story of family, forgiveness, and secrets that have the power to change the course of more than one life.
When Maze returns to Wildstone for the wedding of her estranged bff and the sister of her heart, it’s also a reunion of a once ragtag team of teenagers who had only each other until a … of a once ragtag team of teenagers who had only each other until a tragedy tore them apart and scattered them wide.
Now as adults together again in the lake house, there are secrets and resentments mixed up in all the amazing childhood memories. Unexpectedly, they instantly fall back into their roles: Maze their reckless leader, Cat the den mother, Heather the beloved baby sister, and Walker, a man of mystery.
Life has changed all four of them in immeasurable ways. Maze and Cat must decide if they can rebuild their friendship, and Maze discovers her long-held attraction to Walker hasn’t faded with the years but has only grown stronger.
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Oh boy… The Forever Girl has everything I could ever want in a Jill Shalvis book. And then some. She continues to create characters that I can’t help but fall in love with. When they hurt, I hurt. When they laugh, I laugh right along with them. And most importantly… When they love, I swoon. The Forever Girl follows 4 friends – Maze, Walker, Caitlin, and Heather. Years after being torn apart after a tragic death, they come together to help Caitlin in the final days before her wedding. They support her in every way from running errands to offering up their car for a quick getaway. All the while Maze and Walker find their footing after a drunken night 3 years prior. The chemistry and tension scorched everything around them.
I loved every aspect of this book. Whether it was the family issues that the four of them had to work through or the romance between Maze and Walker, both storylines had me on the edge of my seat. Kudos on another amazing book!
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Also, The Forever Girl, like each of the previous Wildstone series books, stands on its own two feet.
You can fully enjoy it w/o reading any books written before it; the author’s writing technique ensures that.
I’ve read a ton of Jill’s books, going a long way back in her writing career. I’ve read every Wildstone book, and while I can honestly say that I prefer the contemporary romance writing format (like the Lucky Harbor series) to the women’s fiction format (the Wildstone series), it’s mainly because I’m impatient to read the story and get done.
That said, of all the women’s fiction books Jill has written in the past 3 1/2 years, this is my favorite. It’s the only one to which I’ve ever given five stars. Why?
I don’t know how, but this story grabs you. It is wrenching, dreamy, powerful, funny, compelling, emotional, romantic and more. Great bantering, delightful lines from the humorous characters, amazing zingers during arguments. Layers and layers of hard moments, love and affection, hurt feelings, broken dreams, lost childhoods, and misunderstandings. You end up loving each of these characters! The book sucks you in and doesn’t let go, it is written that well. You live these characters, you FEEL them. You think about them when you’re in the shower.
The story sticks in your mind. In fact, you sort of forget it’s a story, because it feels real.
The story is written from several viewpoints, which I found refreshing, so you could glimpse the inner workings of those characters and what they were going through. The story starts cleanly and develops crisply and at a good pace. Bombshells get dropped that will make you gasp out loud. I kept promising myself to stop at the end of the chapter, and then I’d forge straight on because I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
I’m telling you, I honestly don’t usually get this into a story, but I fell hook, line and sinker into this book. It stayed with me for a long time, and even then I went back and read it again, just to experience the emotions and relive the story again.
The other reviews will tell you the storyline and characters, I just wanted to tell you “the feels”.
I have been reading Jill Shalvis books for many years and the one thing I can count on when I pick up one of her books is knowing that I am going to read a unique, well written story that makes me laugh, cry and close the book thinking about it for many days after. The Forever Girl as another great addition to the Wildstone series. Each book was a stand alone story set in the fictional lakeside town. Maze, Heather and Walker lived together as foster children with Cat’s family for one wonderful year until it ended on a tragic event. They kept in touch however strained it might have been until a falling out 3 years ago. Now Cat is getting married and she wants her friends to come home and join her for the big day. There are a lot of sub stories going on in this book. Maze and Walker have a past that their friends are unaware of. Heather is bringing a surprise plus one. Maze is bringing a pretend boyfriend and Cat is questioning the biggest decision of her life. I really enjoyed The Forever Girl and it makes me appreciate my girlfriends and our unconditional love for each other.
This was the absolute best kind of love story! Jill Shalvis demonstrated that a family isn’t always created by blood ties: the best and strongest family can be forged by feelings, fate and putting in the time, effort and love. That is exactly what she wrote and in a very believable way. This book is what family means. It made me feel so many emotions.
Linda’s Book Obsession Reviews “The Forever Girl” by Jill Shalvis, January 2021
Jill Shalvis, the author of “The Forever Girl” has written a memorable, thought-provoking and captivating novel. The genres are domestic-fiction, women’s fiction and fiction. The timeline for the story is set in the present and goes to the past when it pertains to the characters and events. The author describes her colorful characters as flawed, complex and complicated, and each having their own set of problems. I appreciate that Jill Shalvis discusses the important topic of children growing up in the foster system, and foster families. The author also discusses the importance of self-worth, emotional support, family, friends, love and hope.
Just before Cat’s wedding, her greatest wish is to bring her former foster family and friends to be part of the wedding festivities. At one time the group was very close until there was a tragic event that separated them. Once they are back together again, they have to work out secrets, and guilty feelings.
Now all of them are adults, and they are realizing how they have to be honest with one another. This is an emotional story with romance that I highly recommend for other readers.
Jill Shalvis’s Wildstone series is a collection of standalone stories, interconnected based on the location. Wildstone is a perfect small town in California, near the ocean, and away from the fast-paced larger cities. I have loved each story in the series. They each feel different and are uniquely individual.
In The Forever Girl, Caitlin, Maze, Heather, and Walker have a bit of a traumatic past but have stayed connected. When Caitlin invites them all to her wedding, old flames are rekindled, new romances spark and Caitlin finds herself questioning her entire life.
I absolutely adored every character in this story. If I had one complaint, it would be that I would have loved a separate book about each of the main characters telling their romance/story individually rather than all together at once. It in no way detracts from the story, I’m just being selfish and wishing for more.
I say it all the time, but Jill Shalvis is an auto-buy/must-read author for me. She just has a way of creating worlds I want to visit. Her stories are perfect for when you need a little humor with a little heat and a whole lot of heart.
The love never fades….
Shalvis is a master of writing romance and family with all the feels. She brings so much emotion to her books, it will punch you in the gut.
It shouldn’t be possible, but I swear I love each book in this series more than the next!
The Forever Girl is a story about a found family–for a single year more than ten years earlier, Maze, Walker, and Heather were taken into Caitlin’s family home as foster children, and along with Caitlin’s younger brother Michael, the five grew extremely close. But a tragedy tore them apart, and further misunderstandings and guilt have separated them further over the years. But now Caitlin, the bossy “big sister” of the group, is getting married, and she’s brought the siblings of her heart back together under one roof for an enforced reunion.
Once there, though, Maze finds out that she’s the only one who has been truly separated from the others this whole time, and that everyone–she, Walker, Caitlin, and Heather–has a secret or two that they’ve been hiding, including more than one rather large surprise. They’re each struggling with their own demons as well, and the three POV characters, Mase, Caitlin, and Walker, have some real doozies to deal with. Watching them find each other–and themselves–again is one heck of a journey. I laughed out loud, I cried–I *almost* didn’t want it to end, except that I was absolutely desperate for two of them to find their HEA together 😉 Either way, I truly couldn’t put this book down–I finished it in a single day!
Read the sneak preview of the next book in the series ( Love for Beginners ) at your peril, because right now June 8 seems an awfully long time off…
The Forever Girl is the sixth book in the series, but it truly does work as a standalone. For the most part the only thing that really connects the books is geography–there truly is no need to have read any of the books in the series to understand the events of this one. In other words, it doesn’t matter where you start with this series, just read it! <3
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
Caitlin is getting married in a week and she desperately wants her “family/friends” with her and she wants them to regain the closeness that they once shared. Maze, Heather, and Walker do come out to spend the time with Caitlin and each other but the week is complicated by secrets that all four of them are keeping. Maze is still trying to live down her nickname of “Mayhem Maisie” while Heather is raising her toddler daughter on her own and Walker is keeping a secret about a wild weekend in Vegas years ago. Caitlin is finding it harder and harder to get along with her fiancee and his mother as they are twisting and changing her wedding day plans. One thing that is certain throughout all of this is that the bonds of love and family are very strong and nearly impossible to break.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are my own.
4 1/2 stars for this latest trip to Wildstone. A different kind of read as I was typically used to from the author. Foster siblings who were close at one time, come together after years of separation. Some separation was accidental while other was intended.
Traveling the road of how these siblings relationships once were and what they have become was pretty interesting. Each has issues both inside their core and into their extended lives.
As always, a trip to Wildstone with the author is a trip well taken.
Heartwarming tale of found family and second chances that was just what I needed. The romance is second string to the emotional tale of the family coming back together, so I’d say this is more on the women’s fiction end of the spectrum. But the journey of healing is well worth the trip.
The Forever Girl was great. I enjoyed the storyline, and I love the humor that Jill Shalvis writes into her books. Out of all of the characters, Walker was my favorite! I loved the family/friendship bond that he had with Maze, Caitlin and Heather. Through ups and downs, they always found their way back to one another.
The author’s continued dive into mainstream fiction rather than her usual comedic romance is the gift that keeps on giving. She has a strong skill in character development, which makes her cast of characters in this well rounded and more realistic than other authors. It took me a while to get into the book, which is rare for a Shalvis book, but it was well worth the read.
What a great read, this is not one of her quirky rom coms, not this is a deeper look into family and what actually is family and what they do. You still have the great quirky characters-because who wants a flat character? Caitlin is getting married and wants her estranged foster siblings in her wedding, tragedy has broken their bonds but as Cat sees it they’re her family no matter what. Maze, Heather and Walker are summoned the the family cabin under the pretense of Cat’s impending wedding, a week early. Between a bride who may become a flight risk, old mistakes coming back to life, forgiveness, family love and renewed feelings this is a great read!
This is a return to the Wildstone world that Jill Shalvis created and I always love coming back to that. This is book 6 in the series and it’s about Maze and Walker. Jill describes this as “When Maze returns to Wildstone for the wedding of her estranged bff and the sister of her heart, it’s also a reunion of a once ragtag team of teenagers who had only each other until a tragedy tore them apart and scattered them wide.”
I found this book to be about friendships, both those that needed to end in my opinion and those that needed nurturing. I found a group of people who had grown apart because that’s what life does when we grow up – it pulls us in different directions and I found a new love or maybe it was a love that was always there.
I usually NEVER give away anything in my reviews and this will be no different. What I found different about what Mrs. Shalvis writes is that she writes several stories in one and makes you feel, as the reader as if you’re really in that world. I love the world she’s created and whereas some other author continue series and have continuity issues – she doesn’t because she doesn’t repeatedly have the same book over and over. It’s always refreshing. I respect that and I applaud that. It isn’t sloppy and it shows that her books aren’t uniform which is why she doesn’t put out 6 or 8 books a year. We, as readers appreciate the originality.
The Forever Girl is the 6th book in the Wildstone Series. It can be read as a stand alone novel or as a part of the series. Jill Shalvis is a master at creating heart warming stories that include something for every reader her books are filled with secrets, comedy, sarcasm, family dynamics, second chances, forgiveness, and suspense. She creates characters that really hit home with her audience. Her books are page turners that you do not want to put down. They are the perfect escape for times like these.
Maze returns to Wildstone to reunite with childhood friends who were close once but broken apart after a tragedy. As adults they return for the wedding Cat who wants all of her “family” with her as she moves into her future. They have secrets, resentments and it all comes out through reminiscing while staying at the lake house. They fall into the roles of their youth without missing a beat. Though life has changed them they also all remain the same in some regards. This is their chance to see if they can work through their past and move into the future together stronger than ever. They go through all of the feels during this reunion anger, sadness, resentment, love, attraction and in some ways fear to move into the future as it should be. Do not forget your tissues because it is a tearjerker that will have you laughing out loud. The roller coaster of emotions carries you through to the very end.
Love the Wildstone Series! – Stories that are not just romance but also delve into the complex relationships of family and friends. The Forever Girl is an emotional, heartwarming & romantic story about four foster siblings who are reunited years after being torn apart by a tragedy. As always, Jill Shalvis drew me in to the town and the characters with a story that I couldn’t put down till the end. I’m looking forward to more books in this series.
Jill Shalvis has the uncanny ability to write a book that is about family, and strengthening the ties or repairing (in some instances) the fractures in the family dynamic. Whether family by blood or by choice, you can get the connection these families have just through the words of Jill Shalvis. And The Forever Girl is no exception.
Maze (is it pronounced Mazie or literally Maze??) has ‘gone home’ after years of being away and being incommunicado with her family. The last time she was there, things happened that she felt responsible for and so she exiled herself. Plus there was the whole thing with Walker.
Walker and Maze immediately strike sparks off each other from the time they see each other again, even though Maze brought a “boyfriend” with her. Which who could blame her when running into her hot ex for the first time in years?
While Walker and Maze are the love story of the book, it’s also getting Maze and her family back into the relationship they held before. Rebuilding the bonds they once had.
I love the Wildstone series and can’t wait for book 7! How is it the last one??
Shalvis delivers a tale of poignant, eternal questions about friendship, love, and coming home. You will love these characters and their attempts to mend friendships and chance love. The story is deep in feelings yet doesn’t make the reader feel like they are overwhelmed with it. There is some mystery and laughs throughout to keep the story light enough!
I LOVED THIS BOOK. Like, really loved it. The Wildstone series is a hybrid of romance and women’s fiction, perfect for those who need the romance aspect in their stories. THE FOREVER GIRL gives us Maze, Walker, Heather and Caitlin and while these characters couldn’t be more different they have this deeply-rooted love for one another, an almost indestructible connection.
Maze, Walker and Heather have one thing in common – they were abandoned by the people that were supposed to love them most. All three of them had their parents turn their backs on them. But they were also so lucky being fostered by Caitlin’s parents. From the beginning, they are more family than strangers, filling an empty space inside them with their love for one another. Until tragedy strikes that scatters them in different directions, which leaves their relationship strained.
“You guys are the mac to my cheese.”
Caitlin wants her family back together so she more or less forces them to stay with her and rebuild what they used to have. Maze has always been the wild child, the one who was up to no good, fearless unless it comes to relationships. A fear Walker, the protector in the group, felt on a deep level, when Maze ran from him after a wild night in Vegas. Heather, now a single mom, was the mischievous one, now trying to survive and make ends meet every single day
Every single one in this group puts a lot of work into mending their banged-up ties. I felt that Maze especially made huge progress. She’s a master at deflection yet with her people back in her life she learns how to address her issues and work through them.
“I’ve been with you, and I’ve been without you. And I learned one thing with absolute certainty: my life’s better with you. You know where I stand. I love you, Maze. There are no doubts for me. All that’s left is for you to get off the fence, on one side or the other.”
I adored Walker, who along with Caitlin was the steady rock, reliable and despite the complicated nature of all of their relationships always there to help the others. And I cheered Heather on when she found happiness in her life. Some of my favorite moments were the ones Sammie, Heather’s daughter, made an appearance. She stole the show.
Jill Shalvis’s WILDSTONE series is among my favorites. I love the way she portrays her characters but the way she describes the family dynamics and bond between friends feels so real, heartfelt and visceral. THE FOREVER GIRL was an absolute delight and shows you that blood doesn’t always create the strongest bonds. There were so many lovely moments, so many that had me tear up because of the warmth and love between these characters. And some that made me laugh out loud or threw me in fits of giggles. The romance was amazing – complicated, a little angsty and satisfying. Best swoons you’ll have this year! Jill Shalvis brings her A-game with this one and I’m really looking forward to the next book in this series!
“Turns out, home’s not a place, not for me. It’s you, Maze. You’re my home.”
PS. A book for Caitlin would be amazing!