2.5 stars

The main character reads like a 2007 emo girl who’s all “I’m full of darkness and no one understands me,” and honestly the plot isn’t even that interesting but the book was kinda addicting in that you wanted to know what would happen next.

I was pretty much only upset by a character's death because he was the one genuine character and I actually liked him.

4 1/2 "shooting" stars!

Maris was spending the summer with her father and his "new family." Their relationship was already a rocky one as he had left Maris and her mother and married his pregnant girlfriend and adopted her daughter, Chelsea, who just happened to be the same age as Maris.

They head to Cross Cove, a beach where the wealthy vacation. Chelsea is beyond excited because her boyfriend, Edison and his family will be there also. Therefore, Maris and the "New Browns" (as she calls her father and his new family) spend an inordinate amount of time socializing with the uber wealthy at Cross Cove. In the midst of all of this, several mysterious things occur, leaving Maris with unanswered questions and nagging doubts.

Happily and Madly had a great undercurrent (pardon the pun) of mystery tucked in with the family dynamics that were also at play. It was the first book I've read by Alexis Bass and was a very pleasant surprise. I will definitely have to check out her previous works.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC of Happily and Madly by Alexis Bass.
I was pulled into Maris' story, however, I felt the ending was too rushed and too far-fetched. However, I will still put a copy in my classroom library and book talk it next year.

Reminded me of We Were Liars in its portrayal of a family shiny on the surface but with secrets and tension waiting to be revealed beneath (not just because they both take place during summer on an island!). I really appreciated the descriptive and fluid writing, and especially the well-rounded characters. Maris came across nicely, and had perfectly understandable and deeply-felt emotions about her familial situation while avoiding stereotypical angry outbursts. Although not necessarily believable, and while the romance didn't spark much for me (and not exclusively because of the cheating element), overall an enjoyable read.

*I am grateful to have been given this book as an ARC from NetGalley. All opinions are mine.*

While reading this book, I went back and forth between loving and loathing the main character, Maris. I empathized with her frictional relationship with her dad, because I have one of those myself, but I didn't like her relationship with her step sister's boyfriend at all. I didn't trust Edison and I honestly thought he was manipulating her the way he was manipulating her sister, Chelsea. I was eventually proven somewhat wrong, because he wasn't trustworthy but he really did have feelings for Maris, and eventually stops two timing her sister to be specifically with her.

As I've seen others mention, this book gave me serious We Were Liars vibes, but I think I enjoyed that one more than I did this one. It wasn't a horrible book, it just took a while for things to build up and actually happen. Once the story started to move, I was more interested and couldn't put it down. I actually finished it in one day!

If I would change one thing, it would probably be the blurb and the whole "fortune teller told me I was going to die before I turned 18" bit. It is mentioned in the blurb and the beginning of the story when the lady tells her that she is going to fall happily and madly in love, but that she might not live to see 18. It seems like the author almost forgot she included that in there, because it isn't really brought up again until closer to the end of the book when Maris thinks she's dying (but she isn't). I don't feel like that added anything to the story, and I think putting it in the blurb makes the reader think they're getting into a completely different story-- I know I did.

All in all it was a pretty fast read that I enjoyed.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book. Maris, the rebellious but kind teenager. Edison, the troubled but loving boy who just wants to be loved. Chelsea, the purest and genuine girl, who despite her circumstances always sees the best in people. I enjoyed the story and how the twists unraveled. I wish there was more of an ending, however. I was left feeling like there was a little more to tell.

There are things that I did and didn't like about this book. Overall, I find myself on the fence about it.

Maris Brown is visiting her father and his new family for the summer. She has been into some trouble in her life before, and her mom is hoping that maybe a few months in a wealthy neighborhood with respectable people will help her.

The first thing I'm on the fence about is the main character, Maris Brown. I feel for her in many ways... and in many ways, I do not. She is a child of a broken family. Her father had been cheating on her mom for years, and he seems to have this love for her new family that he never had for her or her mother. I can understand how this could potentially cause her to make some bad choices and end up doing some stupid things.

There are two things that I don't find sympathetic about her, however. The first one is that she falls in love with her step-sister's boyfriend, even while she feels sympathy and friendship towards her step-sister. It's not that there's a love triangle involving cheating in this book, it's the fact that Maris and her step-sister are close to each other, even while Maris sneaks behind her back. It's weird. The other thing is that Maris is always snooping. I just want to shake her at times. If you're going to snoop, be careful about it? Her lack of caution is a little infuriating. I get that she's supposed to be reckless and such; perhaps if she had learned from her earlier mistakes later on in the book, it wouldn't be annoying?

The other thing that I thought was weird was how Maris's step-family was always hanging out with these wealthy people. Why? While I'm not close to people that are quite as rich as their friends, I do find it strange that they spend nearly every day with these people and they don't see anything odd about it?

Other than these items, the story was interesting. There was a mystery to be solved, and many of these people had secrets. The mysteries are solved, and the questions in my mind are resolved by the end of the book. I even like the ending. If you can get over the "I'm cheating on you with your boyfriend but we're friends" and the whole careless snooping thing, this would be a pretty good book.

In Alexis Bass's new book, main character Maris Brown has a lot to be angry about. As a result of her acting recklessly and being under the bad influence of her boyfriend, Trevor, her mom sends her to spend the summer with her father and his new family, who Maris refers to as "the New Browns." She has a stepmother, Trisha, a baby half-sister, Phoebe, and a stepsister her own age, Chelsea.

In Cross Cove, where the "New Browns" are summering, Maris is dealing with her resentment of her father's treatment of his new family - a darn sight more generous with both money and love than he was with her or her mother - when she decides to take off by herself for a walk. It is on this solo adventure that Maris comes across a boy named Finn, who is being chased by older men. Maris acts to distract them from Finn's hiding place and finds herself attracted to the handsome stranger.

Maris meets up with Finn again later (she's found his cell phone and he wants it back), and she is excited for an adventurous summer with this boy. But this is not your average everyday romance novel. The next day, when Chelsea's home-from-overseas boyfriend knocks on the door, he is not just Edison, Chelsea's boyfriend . . . he's Finn.

Maris continues her adventurous summer, getting embroiled in a suspenseful secret world involving Edison's family, the Duvals (except he's not really a Duval), while continuing to see Edison behind Chelsea's back. Her desire to unravel all the secrets she finds could be the end of her . . . because the Duvals don't want their power and secrets unraveled. The title's a little misleading - this book has some dark turns and twists - but the plot unfolds cleanly and Maris, though a little unlikable at first for messing around with her stepsister's boyfriend, grows throughout the novel into a character worth caring about.

This is the first book that I have read by Alexis Bass, and while it held my interest until the very end, it did feel slightly rushed at the end, like she was trying to wrap up all the loose ends but only had a limited amount of pages to do it in.

Maris was a character that I liked, but there were aspects that I did struggle with. Even though the relationship between her and Edison (Finn) was engaging, but at what cost? Would she really have pursued it knowing who she would be hurting? I am a believer in love and people being drawn to each other, but I was unsure, given her past, that she would have acted as quickly and erratically as she did.

This book does have a lot of twists and turns, and the other issue I had was with the authorities in the book (won't say more so I don't ruin it) and how Maris was so easily able to infiltrate their world.

With that said, the book did flow well, with a well written plot and well developed characters. I do think that Sepp might have been my favorite because he did seem the most real to me.

It is a book that I would recommend, and because all readers are different I enjoy reading what others views are as well.

I was hoping this would take on a We Were Liars vibe, but I was dissatisfied as the story progressed and everything remained the same. I didn’t realize this until after 36% since up until that point the plot was still setting up. Maris is spending the summer with her father, his new wife, her stepsister, and her infant half-sister in the coastal New England town of Cross Cove. She goes exploring in the woods on her first day there and sees a bleeding and bruised guy limping away from something. Her decision to help him hide from a posse of guys is the tipping point for everything else that follows.

This read like a journal entry by skipping through actions and steps and only focusing on the highlights. Maris was bland and unemotional, her stepsister Chelsea was fascinated with living happily ever after with her boyfriend Edison, and Edison was two-faced, showing his true self secretly around Maris while being the shiny, rich, handsome boyfriend to Chelsea and constantly impressing the family.

Mysteries are implanted every now and then when Maris follows and eavesdrops on people. She always gets caught which grew old since you knew what would happen when she trailed someone. I knew from that start that Edison’s family was fake, from their glistening smiles to having Maris’ family over every day to enjoy the luxuries of the rich life. The reveal was pinpointed from the beginning and the lack of action and suspense knocked the rating down for me.

If anything, this reminded me of The Lies They Tell by Gillian French, except this was portrayed better.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of Happily and Madly by Alexis Bass. This is the first novel I have read by this author; it was wonderful. It was a real page turner: a combination of romance, mystery, lies and money. The secrets being kept by many of the characters kept me totally engrossed in the book.

Quick and easy read. I felt the first few chapters moved a little slow but the. It picked up and kept me hooked. Maris and Edison fall in love even though Edison is never truly open with her. Maris has the ability to forgive and forget his lies. Maybe she just finds ways to justify them.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of Happily and Madly.
I absolutely DEVOURED this novel. It was heart-pumping, soul-crushing, and forbidden-romance all at once! Amazing chemistry. delicious deception, so many lies and secrets! (I especially loved the mystique of Finn's life and the risk-taking behavior that he and Maris shared.) I will INTENTLY search for and read both past and future works from this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and Alexis Bass for the ARC!

Another Great Book by Alexis Bass. Happily and Madly is wild ride that will have you hooked till the very end. Maris Brown is sent for the summer to vacation with her father and his new family but it anything but a vacation. While exploring one afternoon Maris stumbles upon Finn and saves him from disaster. Later to find out Finn is actually Edison her new step-sisters boyfriend and everything is a crazy after that. I really liked this book because it was full of romance, suspense, and mystery. A must read!!

Rarely does a YA thriller keep me guessing till the very end. This was the amazing exception. Great plot, well-built characters who are flawed yet sympathetic, and tons of twists. Can’t wait to book talk this one to my HS students- they’re going to love it!

Happily and Madly by Alexis Bass was a character-driven mystery that struck a perfect balance between compelling pageturner and slow burn read. How can a pageturner also be a slow burn? Basically I was pulled in and compelled to come back to the book over 3 successive nights, but the writing was moody, languid, warm and easy to slip into like the perfect bubble bath... I didn't want to rush because I wanted the read to last.

First I am disappointed in myself that this is the first Alexis Bass book I have read. I love her writing style. It's crisp and cultivates a mood without being flowery, and every character was astutely drawn and both easy and not-so-easy to pin down. I ached with empathy for Maris in particular, but also Chelsea, and felt that emotional attachment to the main character and the wrongs done against her that I love in a good book: I was so upset on her behalf, so desperate for her to lose her cool and say precisely the perfect biting words to her estranged father--really castigate him and put him in his place. Many books really disappoint on this front, or they take it too far, with a soap opera-like confrontation, but the book left me very emotionally satisfied.

But, okay, so let's get to my ONE quibble, and that's with the back cover copy/pitch for the book. It wasn't misleading, per se, but it doesn't do the book justice! The blurb really makes it seem like this is a ticking clock book, that the fortune teller's prediction that Maris will die before her 18th birthday is an essential aspect of the book's narrative drive--but it's not. Maris doesn't even take the fortune teller seriously? And I am glad for it: I wasn't sure I wanted to read a book with that pulsing backbone, and this book is so much more than a juicy hook?

No, Happily and Madly is a character and setting/mood driven barely-can-call-it-a-thriller-thriller--and it really hit the spot. Bass nails the "lower class outsider experiencing a time among f*cked up rich people," which is almost a genre unto itself, and I loved every second of it. Cape Cove leapt off the page, as did all the ridiculously wealthy and wannabe wealthy people, and I loved all the yachts, masquerade parties, badminton... high class society with dark secrets happens to be one of my favorite subgenres in mystery thriller, so if that sounds up your street, you might love this too.

Now, let's talk about the romance in the book... first off, the book smacked me in the face with an early plot twist that should have been painfully obvious, but the execution is well handled. In the first 20 pages, Maris discovers a boy on a small island who is running for his life, and she saves him. I was like WHAT IS THIS BOOK and it only develops from there. But the pacing and tone isn't high octane thriller--what I enjoyed so much was all these soapy elements unfolding in a very measured manner. The focus is character relationships, not plot twists.

I have one spoilery warning that involves cheating. I was able to suspend disbelief and temper my emotions, re: the cheating plotline, but it's going to bother a lot of readers, I imagine. There are two threads of cheating: 1) Maris's love interest is dating her step-sister Chelsea. It's handled as sensitively as is possible in a slightly soapy/mystery set-up, but for some readers, it will simply be untenable. 2) It becomes clear early on that Maris's dad George cheated on her mom with his now wife/step-family. This is less egregious, but yeah there's lots of cheating referenced in the book.

One thing I really enjoyed: there isn't any girl-hate in the book. The feelings Maris has for and relationships she has with her step mother and step sister are well handled. It would have been so easy to make Trisha the bad guy, or make Chelsea the annoying try-hard stepsister, but Maris is very empathetic and the book doesn't fall into easy tropes of her being bitter and hating everything.

I'll say that the book's twists get a bit muddled at the very end, mostly because the focus of the book isn't the unfolding mystery and thus there's a lot to fit in in very little space at the end, but because the focus of the narrative wasn't the mystery, but the relationships, I didn't mind.

That said, readers expecting a high-octane or spooky (b/c of the fortune teller) thriller read might be disappointed. That's not what this is. But I loved it.

Absolutely loved this book! Couldn't put it down until it was finished. Will definitely be recommending to customers at my work!