Can a socialite and a technophobe fall in love?A bubbly personality and a great job in social media didn’t mean that Willow Lawson had it all. Her love life was distant memory and her social life only work related. The maddening demands of life seemed to get in the way of finding time for herself or her friends. She starts the Pepper Lane Club as a chance to step away from her busy schedule once … busy schedule once a month to reconnect with her friends.
Thomas Greer, the proprietor of the Pepper Lane Café, annoys her. He’s her complete opposite; unsociable, serious, old-fashioned and dead set against social media.
Always game for a challenge, Willow decides to take him on as a client. She’s going to prove to Thomas that he needs her help. She knew she would be successful, she just didn’t know she would lose her heart along the way.
Can Willow fall in love with a man that doesn’t respect her profession? Will Thomas let go of his preconceptions long enough to get to know the real Willow? Enjoy this sweet romance as Willow finds love and friendship in the first book in the Pepper Lane Series.
Six women. Six stories. Six chances of love. One café.
The Pepper Lane Series follows the lives of six women as they share life, love and heartache once a month at the Pepper Lane Club. They might be an unlikely group of friends, but it takes all types to form a tribe.
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Willow was this vivacious character that had the best personality I have read about in a long time. At times she could come off as immature but that was just the banter that Thomas brought out in her and it was hilarious to see them rile each other up. One night she gets bored by being at home on a Saturday night, so she calls her twin and starts spit balling these ideas to her and comes up with the Pepper Lane Club. They meet once a month at this amazing café just to talk and escape everyday life, but Willow being an advertising/social media influencer that helps businesses attract customers notices the cafe doesn’t have an online presence. With some back and forth with the owner, Thomas, he finally relents to her help. I loved how the attraction between them was instant and always in the background, yet they couldn’t help giving each other a hard time. Can they set their differences aside and work together or will their stubborn ways keep them from helping each other? This was such a fun, cute, and sweet read that had me laughing one second then swooning over Thomas the next.
Loved this sweet romance. So many happy and funny moments featuring so many amazing characters. It was a great and enjoyable story.
Meet Willow, a woman who is excellent in doing her job. She’s the queen of promoting businesses on social media and so on. The Pepper Lane Club was something that she came up with, an idea she had in her mind because she wanted to just hang out with her group of friends—girls only—where they can talk about their lives and other things. Enter Thomas, the owner of Pepper Lane Cafe, the quiet and peaceful cafe. He doesn’t know who Willow is, and he only knows her as the woman who insist on helping him promote his business which he’s not interested to do. But he comes around later on and as they work together to promote his business, they started to catch feelings and wonder if they actually like each other.
The whole plot was easily predictable, but that doesn’t mean the story is not enjoyable. I find myself loving this book. I was laughing the whole time because it was so funny due to the amount of hilarious moments in the story.
The whole story doesn’t just focus on building up Thomas and Willow’s relationship, but it also focuses on the bond between sisters, friendship, and the importance of promoting a business through social media. Some people might see this book as just another chick-lit romance and easily dismiss it without trying to pick it up and read it. I’m glad to take an opportunity to read this one, at least this book shows a lot of important things that can be very relatable to real life.
Willow is a great character, she’s independent, have thousands of ideas when it comes to promoting a business and is well-organized when it comes to doing her job. We also get to see how she do it and what she thinks of the success. She loved hanging out at cool and quiet cafes where not many people know about, and she wanted to help it known by many so she discussed her idea with the owner and started to help promote it, and when she successfully did it, the business was booming.
I liked her idea of starting the Pepper Lane Club where she gets to meet with her friends once a month at a cafe and just have a big catching up session together. It makes me think what a great thing it will be if we do that and have a big reunion with our old schoolmates now that we’re going our separate ways ever since we graduated from high school or college or uni a few years ago. Just imagined the chaos of having a catch up session and just talk about what our lives were like now and what the others are doing at this point in their lives. It was a great idea that Willow came up with. I’m sure many of us also thinking about doing the same thing at one point.
Thomas is another great character. The amazing hero where as Willow is the amazing heroine of the story. Thomas is the opposite of Willow. He can be very charming and also a bit flirty, he basically is the definition of ‘confident.’ He’s not the type of social media person like Willow, he doesn’t have social media accounts and loves to keep things quiet, and that’s what I liked about his character, it makes him unique. I thought he was this grumpy person who doesn’t want any help from anyone, but I was wrong! I didn’t expect his character to be so kind, caring, friendly and helpful. He has a lot more confidence compared to Willow, but they do shared some similarities too.
Their relationship wasn’t actually enemies-to-lovers even though it looks like it. Willow couldn’t stand Thomas sometimes, not that she hate him or whatsoever and yet she still agreed to go out with the guy when he asked her. Their relationship is more of a slow-burn type, the tension was high enough and they definitely have an amazing chemistry. I loved the build up of their relationship, but I just feel like the ending wasn’t enough. I wanted to see more of their relationship, I mean…they only started to get official at the last chapter. I was hoping to see more.
It was just a simple story but definitely memorable. This is the type of story you can’t just forget and one that you can always pick up and read all over again when you’re bored or just didn’t know what to read next.
3.5 Stars
Willow Lawson is a fun loving social media expert, who helps companies stand out from their competitors. Yet, despite her bubbly personality, her social life is mostly work-related, and her love life is non-existent. So along with her twin Riley they start a dinner club & the venue is the Pepper Lane Café hence The Pepper Lane Club is formed. It’s at this very first meeting that she meets Thomas Greer, who owns the café. He’s everything she’s not. He’s serious, unsociable, unfashionable, and dead set against social media. She decides to take him on as a client despite his refusals. The Pepper Lane series tells the stories of six women, who agree to meet once a month at their local café.
I found this to be a fun, light hearted start to a new series & look forward to reading the rest of the series. I liked Willow even though her time keeping needed some attention. Truman her dog simply stole the book. I liked Thomas but felt he was two dimensional & didn’t get to know him. Ideal for whiling away a few hours
My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read
Willow is just like her name a effervescent moving dynamic swaying on the go person! She is a Social Media butterfly who thinks every business and person needs their footprint to be seen in the webworld!
She meets Thomas Greer who owns the Pepper Lane Cafe and he is content to wear loafers and ties and not have a Instagram account.
Sparks fly and the two souls will collide, but will it be in the web or in the here and now?
I loved this book and the sexy sparks that came from Willow and Thomas! This book was written very well, but I definitely would recommend the author bring out in her other writing style more sexuality tension and have the characters even spark more. I think that could have jazzed this book up just a notch. Overall, I enjoyed this book! I actually searched for the other books in the series to read!
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions.
Willow by Grace Parks is a cute, entertaining story. I enjoyed the characters and their progression.
Willow is sweet. She’s good at her job. Loved by her parents and twin. A bit of a slob and procrastinator and seldom punctual. But she’s sweet and likable. Thomas is her polar opposite she thinks. She sees his lack of tech savviness, complete lack of interest in using social media, and his clothing choices as proof of her theory that he’s an old man in young man’s body. She has ambitious ideas about how she can bring his great but underutilized restaurant around with a internet presence. She sees the same opportunity for another business he takes her to. As Thomas becomes more into modern methods of advertising and communicating and the other business booms with her help, Willow starts to question the ultimate results. Is this really what’s best? She also finds her interest in Thomas changing and her attraction growing.
It’s really fun to see these two interact. They’re cute from the beginning and sweeter as they get closer. I enjoyed watching them and was invested in their HEA.
For a bit of light reading with a feel good story, this book was just the right read.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
I am not really sure what to say about this book. I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t love it. I am sure there will be books about the other women in the club, but this book didn’t keep me interested enough to follow through with the series.
I think it was supposed to be a romance. It took so long for Thomas and Willow to connect, that I kind of lost interest. It was so irritating having Willow constantly talking about how Thomas wasn’t her type, she didn’t like him, and he dressed like an old man. How do you dress like an old man by wearing a long sleeved shirt?
I thought some of Thomas’ dialogue was witty, but he had no one to play off of with the dialogue. Willow was boring and irritating. I wanted to like this book, but it was a struggle from the beginning to almost the very end. It took me DAYS to read a book I normally could
have finished in a day or day and a half. I would recommend reading it and judging for yourself. It may be something you like. It just wasn’t for me.
I voluntarily read and reviewed this book received from NetGalley.
4 star review of Willow (The Pepper Lane Club #1) by Grace Parks
Grace Parks is a new author to me and I have not come across her books before, I have no idea. This was a fun, entertaining read that had me hooked from the first to the last chapter. Willow Lawson is fed up with the chaos that is her busy social media expert life and starts The Pepper Lane Dinner Club to give her and her friends the opportunity to re connect on a monthly basis and this is such a great idea.
At their first meeting she meets the owner of the Pepper Lane Cafe, Thomas Greer, who is her total opposite. He hates anything to do with social media, is old fashioned and a tad set in in ways and refuses the help she offers. However Willow has not gotten to be as successful as she is without learning to fight for what she believes in.
Six women, a tribe if you will, all different and all there for one another, a sisterhood and a theme I loved. I enjoyed the push and pull of their relationship as Willow digs her heels in and is determined to bring Thomas and his cafe into the present. The relationship Willow has with her twin sister Riley was so supportive and it is obvious they they are best friends as well as sisters.
If this first book is anything to go by then this will be an entertaining series. The banter is witty, the friendships heart warming and the love and support that they have for one another added an additional layer to the story.
Willow by Grace Parks is a contemporary romance and the first book in The Pepper Lane Club romance series. It features Willow Lawson, a social media expert, who helps companies improve or set up websites and their social media sites. Willow suggests to her twin sister, Riley that they start a dinner club. They plan to have it at the Pepper Lane Café. The restaurant has no web or social media presence and Willow is determined to meet owner Thomas Greer and convince him to be her client.
While she has an outgoing personality and goes to a lot of events, her circle of friends is small. She’s a people pleaser, acts confident, but isn’t, hates her boss, and is messy in her personal life and her work desk; but she’s great at her job. Thomas is unsociable, doesn’t like social media, serious, and doesn’t want her help. However, the reader doesn’t get to see enough of Thomas’ life to get to know him well. The other five women in the dinner club are introduced, but didn’t have a lot of depth. Their characters will likely be fleshed out in later books in the series.
The story line is straight-forward without a lot of twists. However, besides romance, themes include friendship, sisterhood, interoffice politics, betrayal, and family. Truman, Willow’s dog, provided some adorable moments. The one major problem I had was that Willow was an hour late to her first meeting with Thomas. This was so unprofessional that it grated on me.
Overall, this novel is light, funny, and entertaining. It’s a good start to the series and I look forward to seeing what happens to each of the other five women in the dinner club.
Author Collective 20 and Grace Parks provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. This is my honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way. Publication date was April 19, 2019.
this was a great book. I thought it was a sweet story. This being the first book in the series we meet 6 woman with very different personalities and lives. This books main character is willow. She is a social media specialist. She seems very busy but in fact is kind of bored. She calls her twin sister, a writer, and next thing you know we have the Pepper Lane Club. Willow has more going on then you think and soon I found myself thinking she is in over her head. She then surprised me with how she turned things around. I think anyone looking for a good easy read will enjoy this book.
This is a rom-com, this is the story of Willow and the first in the series. The story is funny, sweet with a bit of romance, this is the first book by the author I read and the blurb caught me, however, it felt a bit flat on some character development, and during some situations, I even felt it ab it more like YA than NA. Overall it was entertaining.
Willow (The Pepper Lane Club #1) was a great read by Grace Parks. Willow Lawson is a social media expert who helps companies stand out from their competitors. She starts The Pepper Lane Club to meet once a month and reconnect with her friends. She meets Thomas Greer at their first meeting at the cafe he owns. They are complete opposites in every way but it may just be what makes them great for each other. I really enjoyed Willow and Thomas’ story and can’t wait to read more by Grace Parks.
I’ve enjoyed to follow Willow and her girlfriends adventures in this delightful story.
Our heroine,Willow, is very good at doing her job.She helps various business to get enough exposure creating social media pages and new websites but when she isn’t working she doesn’t feel content with her life,so the boredom is the reason why she decided to found a girls club.
Pepper Lane Cafe is the perfect place to held the monthly dinner of her club because it is lovely, with a great menu and a nice waiter but when she realizes that the place is pretty empty she tries to convince the owner that the cafe needs more exposure.Thomas is wary of technology and all Willow’s ideas.
Will they stop bickering and start to work together?You have to read this book to find out.
Favorite Quotes:
We turned around to the sound of our boss, who had snuck up on us like a thief in the night. Megan was a heavy set woman who, despite her size, always managed to creep up on us when we were least expecting it. Despite wearing big leather boots today, we hadn’t heard a sound. We were certain she owned some magic powers, and that by signing our work contract we had also signed away our lives.
Carey worked quickly, like the Edward Scissorhands of the salon world, and I knew this was the job for her.
My Review:
This lighthearted and playful tale has put me in the mood for alliteration; it was fast, fun, frothy, and feisty. I enjoyed the entertaining storylines, wry wit, clever humor, breezy writing style, and lively collection of characters. Willow’s banter and verbal exchanges were often like a Masters level tennis match and kept a frequent smirk on my face while reading. Her character could also be a bit annoying to others as she was often late, hung-over, argumentative, and messy. Hmm, we could be closely related.