Member Reviews
Say You Still Love Me had great characters. I loved Piper's tenacity and strength. As she worked to fill her father's shoes in their family company, her resiliency and drive made her very successful. Kyle had a challenging childhood, the polar opposite of Piper's childhood. Yet, despite their differences, they find common ground and love. Moving from flashbacks to present time was a literary treat for me as we were able to see how Piper and Kyle first fell in love.
Loved this cute quick easy read book. The past and present writing style had me hooked from the beginning. The storyline will take you right back to the easy teenage days of hanging with your besties day after day after day. Super cute story that was well written and fun to read.
Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This book brought me right back to my summers in high school, where everyday was spent allll day long at our swim club. This book has flashbacks between a high school summer at Camp WaWa, and present day, 13 years later, and centers on a summer love that quickly ended but was never forgotten. The characters are so endearing and it 100% makes me wish I grew up at summer camp. My favorite part though, is the strong female lead who knows what she wants, and always goes for it. I flew through this and really enjoyed it!
Thank you to @netgalley + @atriabooks for an eARC in exchange for an honest review! .
Oh my, this story was SO GOOD. Piper Calloway is the VP at her fathers multibillion-dollar real estate firm. She’s grown up living a privileged life, and currently lives with her best friends in a posh downtown penthouse. She thought her biggest problems were dealing with office sexism and tolerating her ex-fiancé, and fellow VP, every day, until she runs into her first love, Kyle Miller, the new security guard of her fathers building.
The story is told from alternating timelines, and I adored how Tucker wove the story together. Piper and Kyle met as teenagers the summer that they were both camp counselors. I never went to summer camp, but I was here for all the camp chapters! Piper and Kyle had completely different childhoods and life experiences, their class differences play a lot into how their relationship progresses during the flashback chapters.
This story is filled with angst and sexual tension, both past and present. But there’s not a lot of sex in this one. Mostly tension and insane chemistry (there’s a bit more steam during the flashback chapters). The contrast between watching Piper and Kyle fall in love as teenagers and then Piper trying to figure out what went wrong 13 years later, completely hooked me. There’s a mystery element, Piper doesn’t know everything that happened during their camp romance. Needing to know what happened is what made the book unputdownable for me!
I loved that Piper is a strong business woman, but I did question how realistic it would be for her to become completely distracted at work once Kyle returns. I mean, it’s been 13 years since they’ve seen each other, yet he flips her world upside down upon returning. Regardless, this earns 5 stars from me.
If you love second chance slow-burns, put Say You Still Love Me on your TBR now and get ready for August 6th!
While there were parts of this book that irritated me, I honestly could not put this down! I read this story in one sitting and got nothing accomplished all day. (The kids got Happy Meals for dinner because I couldn't tear myself away) I can't wait to see what this author throws at us next!
Say You Still Love Me by KA Tucker is a solid read.that takes the reader back to a time where things were much simpler. Combine that with adult responsibilities and this was a tale that flipped back and forth between the past and the present.
I really liked this story. It's whimsical and nostalgic hitting all the right chords and playing out well for a second-chance romance. Toggling from present to past with each chapter strictly from the heroine's point of view we travel in the midst of two love stories from youth and adulthood. The subdued and simmering chemistry is palpable really solidifying the intense connection making the romance that much more explosive.
There were a couple of character quirks about the hero that I had had enough of that really kept me from rating this 5 stars even though I did fully enjoy the story. The heroine was definitely the stronger character. But together there's no denying the loveliness of their journey to, away, and back to each other. With interesting backgrounds and brighter futures the two are very different but something special in each other.
K.A. Tucker's writing in the first person point of view was lovely as well. I didn't caught up in an abundance overly exaggerated details in this perspective and her story flow kept me engaged the entire time. I was especially loving how she slowly unraveled the past through the present without leaving us hanging after every chapter as an artificial plot device. It worked really well and suited the story of these two characters quite perfectly.
Say You Still Love Me proves itself as an excellent story for the hopeless romantics. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. It's a complete stand alone and easy read.
K.A. Tucker always tugs at my heartstrings. Everything of hers I have read, I always adore. Piper and Kyle are a love story we probably all wish we had. First love reuniting. It was a great story. The mystery, romance, humor was just all wonderful. I definitely recommend for an adult romance.
I received a complimentary copy of this book through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
I have read all of Ka Tucker’s books, and was excited to get an advanced copy of this. Being that it is a second chance romance, that also drew me in.
I struggled with the main character Piper. While I appreciated her career driven personality, there was just something about her. I did feel the chemistry between her and Kyle.
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an advanced read in exchange for this review.
Piper is a 29 year old VP at her dad's multi-million dollar company. She lives in a posh penthouse with her friends and enjoys the single life after breaking up with her fiance' (her coworker).
A new security guard begins to work in her building. It's the guy who broke her heart at camp when she was a teenager.
Okay, this book is quite superficial. While I certainly appreciated Piper working in a male dominated company, she basically is there because her dad is the CEO (although she does appear to be good at her job). I'm not sure why she is so immediately in love with Kyle (security guard) again after a quick glance at him. I mostly spent this book rolling my eyes. There isn't much to dislike about Piper. She seems like a nice person who was obviously born on 3rd base, but she doesn't hold that over anyone's head. I was just expecting a little substance from the book. Not for me.
SAY YOU STILL LOVE ME will make you fondly recall all of your own “firsts” –your first day at camp, your first crush, your first kiss, your first love – and all the other romantic milestones and adventures involved in being young and inevitably foolish!
But young love rarely survives its infancy, and the star-crossed lovers in this story are no exception. Kyle and Piper come from two different worlds. Kyle’s father and two of his brothers are in prison, whereas Piper’s father is a wealthy real estate developer. Their paths first cross when they work as teen counselors at Camp Wawa, somewhere in New York or thereabout. It is love at first sight – the young couple continue to fall even more in love over the course of that wild and romantic summer. The slow burning attraction between these two young lovers was sweet, and a joy to read.
But, alas, tragedy strikes, separating Piper and Kyle. (No spoilers here! Find out for yourself what happened!)
Thirteen years have passed when, out of the blue, Piper sees Kyle working as a security guard in her father’s office tower. She can’t stop thinking about him, wondering why he never returned her calls and emails all those years ago: why he just seemed to disappear off the face of the earth and broke her heart.
There are all kinds of mysteries surrounding Kyle’s reasons for coming back into Piper’s life. No matter: neither of them can deny that they have been pining for each other since that last fateful day at camp Wawa. There is no way they can walk away from each other this time – which makes for a very steamy and passionate reunion!
One theme that recurs throughout this story is that the path to true love can be very messy and requires a lot of faith and forgiveness along the way. I really enjoyed all of the characters in this story: the mischievous, fun-loving Kyle and his crazy friend Eric; the goodhearted, passionate Piper who wants her father’s approval, but who refuses to sacrifice her love for Kyle in order to keep it; Christa, the chief camp counselor who must always be right, and who adopts the world’s most neurotic Siamese cat; and finally Ashley, the ultimate “earth child” who literally knits their entire group together. I absolutely enjoyed this second chance at love story, which is told in shifting “Now” and “Then” time sequences. You are kept on the edge of your seat until the very last chapter for the final reveal. Highly, highly recommended!
My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
When Piper Calloway was 16 her mom made her trade in a summer of luxury spent on the family's yacht for a job as a counselor at a rundown summer camp. When Kyle Miller was 17 he was a counselor at that same camp as a way to escape his criminal family and earn much needed money for the rest of the year. Nothing about their lives outside of that lakeside campsite would make them seem right for each other but everything else about them is. It was love at first sight until something huge tore them apart.
In Say You Still Love Me, it has been ten years since that heartbreak when Piper sees Kyle working security at the office she's poised to inherit. Is it possible that they still love each other after all these years?
Say you Still Love Me tells switches between the past and present as it tells the story of how Piper Calloway and Kyle Miller met, fell in love and then fell apart. I enjoyed every second of it.
I am such a big fan of K.A. Tucker I was over the moon when I received a ARC of this book. It was a sweet touching romance that pulled at my heart string. It didn't hold my attention the first half of the book with all the past and present back and forth but my the end I was completely into it and was left feeling content with the overall story. It wasn't a favorite of mine but still a good and quick second chance book.
The rich girl—entitled and privileged and knows it while walking the fine line between being smug and modest about her status—with a guy on the wrong side of the tracks come together during a fateful summer camp? It sounds partway like ‘Grease’ with a bit of a twist and the added growing pains that still impact adulthood over a decade later. Or at least, there’s lots of nostalgic and wistful recollection of the days tainted rose-gold as people always fondly say ‘those were the days’ in reference to the years gone by.
The summer lovin’ that K.A. Tucker writes about between Kyle Miller and Piper Calloway sit fully in the New Adult category—there’s a huge element of teenagers simply trying being teenagers, testing and breaking every boundary just because they can—as past and present are simultaneously told in alternating chapters. And as with Tucker’s writing, the way to a happy-ever-after is paved with thorns and the ending always bittersweet, never one that’s allowed to be all sunshine and roses.
Painting Kyle/Piper’s teenage love as absolutely unforgettable even though their time together lasted just a few weeks allows Tucker to use this particular point in time as the base event to which everything in the present was tied to. However, reconnecting 13 years later with no contact between the 2 protagonists whatsoever was still a bit of a stretch for me, because the weight of the past didn’t feel momentous enough for me to buy into the fact that the teenagers who had grown into adults with diverging paths, changing priorities and life goals, still wanted what they had so long ago and for so short a time.
‘Say You Still Love Me’ is undoubtedly more layered and complex than the typical NA/YA novel that revolves around hormonal shenanigans. But it did feel a tad too long, filled with too many details that helped with the building dread of Kyle/Piper’s separation but didn’t seem fully relevant to the forward momentum and the big-reveal at the end. With a rushed HFN ending after the pages of build-up, I think I finished the story still mixed…needing a more concrete ending after the angst but not quite getting it.
I adored this novel. Maybe I am not being clear...I ADORED THIS NOVEL!!! I am a huge K.A. Tucker fan. This one had me at young camp love. By the end, I was crying hysterically in the very best way. This was a quick read and the steaminess was just the right level for me. I will highly recommend this one. Well done. Well done.
I am a huge fan of KA Tucker and this book will definitely be in my summer reading guide.
This is a second chance romance set in dual timelines - summer camp 13 year ago and present day. These is the story of two characters who come from opposites.
Piper is rich and on track to takeover her dad’s multimillion dollar real estate development company. Kyle comes from the wrong side of the tracks. They were together during summer camp but a major event happen that led Kyle to disappear for 13 years. He reappears in Piper’s life again as a security guard in her building. Over the course of the story, we see secrets uncover, we discovered what happened at camp, what lead Kyle to disappear.
I like the present day timeline much better than the camp. However the story was rich and unique.
This was such a good read. I am looking forward reading The Simple Wild next.
3.5 Stars. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Note: I tried to keep some parts of my review vague to avoid spoilers.
K.A. Tucker is one of my favourite contemporary romance authors and I have thoroughly enjoyed all of her books. With Say You Love Me, Tucker moves away from her usual style by switching between the past and present to give the reader a full picture of the story and the events that lead to today.
Piper and Kyle meet while working together as camp counsellors. Their attraction to one another is instantaneous, but when the summer comes to an end, Kyle disappears from Piper's life. 13 years later, they meet again and this is where the reader begins to follow their story.
I've come to expect a level of suspense and gut wrenching in Tucker's novels, but I found it a bit lacking in this title. While Piper and Kyle's teenage romance is sweet and actions like Kyle's tattoo are beautiful, their remaining attraction could use more in helping the reader understand why they both made such a strong impact on one another years ago (something that goes beyond first love territory). It needs to justify how it leads to their reconnection. I think the pace was a bit too slow and took away from the moments that could provide both shock and clarity, and the ending was so abrupt that it took away from the time dedicated to the build up.
In Say You Love Me, I really enjoyed some of the interactions between the side characters and the protagonists. I surprised myself and absolutely enjoyed Piper's ex-fiancé as a character. Connecting to my previous comment, I think more time could have been dedicated to developing the story with Eric since that plot was hinted at throughout the novel.
Say You Still Love Me is one of those books that I did not see coming. It was an all consuming type of read, yet such a different nostalgic feeling to it. From first loves, to second chances. From past to present, I went through a whirl wind of emotions, and loved every single minute of it. I absolutely adored how the past was such an integral part of this story. That is probably my favorite thing about Say You Still Love Me. I felt like I was reliving my childhood whilst reading. From meeting new friends, doing stupid stuff, and falling in love for the first time. I loved the way this author wove the tale of Piper and Kyle. It felt wholesome, and as mentioned above, all consuming. The only thing I felt was missing was, more character development from the HERO. I feel like we didn't really get to see his progression in the present, because so much was happening in the land of business. Other than that, it was a wonderful read.
Piper, I feel like, didn't change much throughout the book, which was a good thing. She was bold, and beautiful. Has a backbone in a male dominated world. She takes challenges, and makes them her own. She is not afraid of life, and what it has to offer. She honestly has more b**** than most men.
Kyle. Oh gosh, I absolutely adored him when he was younger. Coming from essentially nothing, he acted as if life hadn't aged him. He had this soft heart, with a hardened exterior. He wasn't afraid to step out of his comfort zone to try new things. He was daring and brave. I just wanted to squeeze him.
Thirteen years have passed since the summer that changed both Piper and Kyle. Can the rekindle from their past, or is there too much unknown?
I had a hard time getting through this one. The second half was much better than the first. I loved The Simple Wild so I was hoping for something similar but this one wasn’t quite as good. The flashbacks are slow but get much better later on. It was also really hard to get into the romance in the beginning because it was very insta lovey. Overall I did like this but it wasn’t my favourite!
3,5 stars
I am a HUGE K.A. Tucker fan. I have read all her books.... all of them. I am also a huge fan of second chance love stores, so this one was a solid read for me.