Christina Lauren
October 22, 2019
Gallery Books
Blurb:
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners and the “delectable, moving” (Entertainment Weekly) My Favorite Half-Night Stand comes a modern love story about what happens when your first love reenters your life when you least expect it…
Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak.
During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do: sharing all of their hopes, dreams, and deepest secrets along the way. Sam was the first, and only, person that Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her identity to. So when it became clear her trust was misplaced, her world shattered for good.
Fourteen years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Forced to confront the man who betrayed her, Tate must ask herself if it’s possible to do the wrong thing for the right reason… and whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.
Pre-Order Link: Amazon
Can you forgive your first love, your first everything, who hurtfully betrayed you when you discover it’s for a totally understandable reason? That is the question at the center of Christina Lauren’s heartfelt Twice in a Blue Moon.
The first part of the novel shows Tate and Sam meeting in London, Tate with her grandmother and Sam with his grandfather. Tate and Sam are immediately drawn to each other, their nighttime star gazing in the garden behind the hotel is sweet, and filled with all of those out-of-control emotions that teenagers experience. First love. Sam disappears and Tate discovers that he has outed her to the press as the daughter of famous actor Ian Butler. She was used.
Years later, Tate is starring in a film with her father, a film that could conceivably bring her accolades and put her solidly on the A-list when she sees Sam. The past is the suddenly the present, or is it?
The only Christina Lauren novels I’ve read have been romantic comedies. This wasn’t one of them. Not that that is a bad thing, but my expectation felt battered when flung aside. However, that writing and romance is just so solid in Twice in a Blue Moon that I (almost) didn’t care that it wasn’t a rom-com.
One of the elements that has always turned me off about female characters in romances and women’s fiction is that they react first and think seldom, if at all. In a new wave of novels, where angst is not a celebrity, women actually think before reacting. All of this is to say that Tate behaves as a modern thinking woman would/should. She asks questions. She realizes that life is short and that you might only have one chance to do things right. She doesn’t throw tantrums (❤) and storm off slamming doors.
If there are soulmates, Sam is Tate’s, despite not thinking things through during their first relationship. Even the second time around, they are as strongly drawn to each other as they were the first.
Like all of the Christina Lauren novels I’ve read, Twice in a Blue Moon is one you don’t want to put down. The characters ring true, the plot is well-constructed, and the writing involving. I did, however, miss the smart snarky humor of preceding novels. While Twice in a Blue Moon isn’t my favorite Christina Lauren novel, it’s still way beyond a lot of the chick-lit/romances out there.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! 🙂