Meant to Be Mine by Lisa Marie Perry
Publisher: Forever Publishing
Publication Date: August 30, 2016
The death of her fearless Great Aunt Luz brings Sofia back to her hometown of Eaves on Cape Cod. The town is full of memories of her family and when she was very sick and of her first love, Burke Wolf. Sofia learns that Luz left her everything, a shop, a dog, and a home. The decision for Sofia to return to live in Eaves comes easily.
Burke has been fighting his own demons. Once immersed in addictions, he has been clean and sober for many years. The one thing he hasn’t managed to conquer is his need to run and avoid. He’s a longshoreman and leaves Eaves frequently. Will Sofia’s decision to stay make him abandon Eaves and Sofia?
Meant to Be Mine is the first in the Guilty Pleasures series by Lisa Marie Perry. To be honest, I really wasn’t enamored with the beginning of the book. Sofia and her best friend, Joss, immediately struck me as teenage refugees from a young adult novel. Toss in initial liberal droppings of the f-bomb and I thought for sure this was going to be an immature take on adult relationships. The writing in the first few chapters left something to be desired as well, frequently meandering and ambiguous, so that a paragraph necessitated rereading. Syntax errors crept in as well.
However, those issues dwindled mostly a quarter of the way into the novel when it seemed that the story took over and the author wasn’t trying to overwrite quite as much.
The story of heart transplant recipient Sofia and Burke was intriguing, tackling some fresh territory. They had some sexy scenes, but there was so much peripherally occurring in Meant to Be Mine that I would hesitate to call this a romance.
Besides the usual point-of-view (pov) changes between Sofia and Burke, Luz’ lawyer and fiance, Bautista, also had a storyline in his pov, which struck me as odd. It was interesting to understand his feelings and relationship with Luz, but I felt that it did take the focus away from Sofia and Burke.
In fact, there were many such sub-layers to Meant to Be Mine that infringed on the main story. Many characters were introduced and I presume that this is a set-up for additional novels in the series, but I believe that in this situation, less would have been more. I would have loved a bit more depth for Sofia and Burke’s relationship, but with attention focused elsewhere it wasn’t going to happen.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I thought Sofia and Joss were going to be immature, but as Sofia developed, she became a sweet, interesting heroine. Her philosophy of quality of life is great and that’s what made Meant to Be Mine work for me even if other aspects didn’t.
I received an ARC from NetGalley and Forever in exchange for an honest review.
From Amazon: Meant to Be Mine
rating: 
(4 out of 5 butterflies)