I couldn't get into this one. It was boring and slow moving for me. And I couldn't connect with the characters

Good story, couldn't wait to keep reading all what was going to happen. I mean it was good and I enjoyed it but I didn't really like one of the main characters.

This is a quick read but what a great story.Just enough romance to heat a cold night. I will read more from this author.

This was a good read. Sort of. Problem is I don't love this type of stories where the main characters are in love from page one and the author keeps throwing problems and hurdles (and exes) in their path.

I've read others book by this author and have thoroughly enjoyed them all. This book is no exception, however I prefer a story with a build up of the romance instead of diving into an already established relationship. I still strongly enjoyed this book though

Received from Netgalley

I'm not sure I'm capable of giving unbiased review about this book. I'm a huge fan of chemistry and relationship buildup, so having the characters being in love since the beginning of the book was a huge "turn off" for me.
That being said, the book is a very pleasing read for people who are not bothered by the aforementioned issue.

I was drawn into this story very quickly. Maggie's and Lynn's characters were well developed. I liked the backstory of their shared past. The supporting cast of secondary characters were also well drawn. The relationship between Lynn and Maggie developed at a organic pace. I loved all the flirting going on between Maggie and Lynn. I love a good flirty conversation! The built in angst that developed between Lynn and Maggie was not overdone. I think the only character I didn't enjoy was Carrie and that was simply because of her attitude towards the developing romance that I was 100% behind. I haven't read this author before but I look forward to trying more of her titles.

I was really interested in reading this book. The premise sounded different than most lesbian romances. Maggie and Lynn has an intense connection. There are two problems: Lynn is married and Lynn is Maggie's best friend's aunt/surrogate mom. Maggie moves away to go to medical school, however, she receives her internship back where she met Lynn. The connection is still there. What I did not like was the constant should I, shouldn't I. I know there needs to be angst within a story, but this was a ludicrous. I think if you can overlook this, it would be a good story. I just couldn't overlook this.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the kind of story you want to get into and shake up the protagonists. Sometimes you feel like doing it with one, but in this case with both. And with the niece / daughter / friend, I don't know what I wanted to do, a kick in her butt, maybe?

Because what remains at the end of reading this story is the feeling that a character who has a relative importance has influenced the protagonists so much that it is almost absurd. In other stories of this type, the character that restrains the protagonists is a boy, most of the time, but that a woman who the only thing that should matter is the happiness of her aunt / mother and that of her best friend?

The truth is that this overshadows how good history could have been.

I will rate it for the effort, but it has been very frustrating for me to read some chapters and continue reading it.

I feel that the synopsis was off. The author made it seem like Lynn's desire to not have kids would be a major issue and it wasn't. The issue was the niece/best friend and her not wanting them to be together. Outside of that, the book was good. I hadn't read anything from this author before and I would definitely look into what else she has out there. I liked the dialogue, it felt real and not forced, the pace of the story was good and it didn't drag on. Definite read!

A nice second chance, age-gap romance about Maggie who has had a crush on Lynn, her best friend's aunt for years now. The haven't seen eachother in years but fate throws them together when Maggie enters her internship in a hospital in Baltimore where Lynn works as a pediatric nurse.

There was nothing really wrong with the story or the writing style but still I had trouble finishing this book. The situation they were in was very realistic and the resulting choices by the characters very relatable. Yet it started to become a bit too repetitive for me. They have feelings for eachother but every time it seems like they are acting on it something (or someone) comes up and doubts pop up. Since those doubts are also described in depth every time for me personally it came to the point that I was thinking: yes, I know all about your feelings/doubts/insecurities by now, moving along.

For all those readers out there though who like a lot of angst in their story and a very disrupted developing romance with 2 people who are in love with eachother from page 1 this is a book worth picking up. I think you will enjoy it because all in all, it's a well written book.

This book was fantastic!! It’s not every day you read a romance about a character falling in love with her best friend’s aunt/guardian. I guess the old adage is true that love can overcome all obstacles and for Maggie and Lynn it certainly does. Finding one another again after so many years apart and learning who the other had become was just what they needed. The only thing I wasn’t fond of what how truly selfish Carrie was in the past as well as present. She was what kept Maggie and Lynn apart for so long and what almost caused their fledgling relationship to fail. I’m glad she came around. This was a great read!

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers, Bold Strokes Books Inc., of Perfect Timing' for affording me the opportunity to read the book and review it. This is the first book I have read by this author.

The storyline flows, slowly at times and frustrating at other times as the author piles on the "will they won't they" angst and there are numerous outcomes to overcome. There are well described main characters and good supporting characters who provide a lot of the momentum for the storyline. I think more could have been made of the scandal of Beth's interference. She seemed to get off very lightly! Similarly Carrie's intelligence is called into question by completely reading all the signals and ignoring them all and the character comes across as spoilt. It's a good author that provides the reader with characters who make us feel different emotions and Dena Blake's characters certainly come across as realistic. The part I was less sure of was the process of fostering applications which seemd very easy and straightforward. I've no idea how accurate this is in the US. It's certainly much more complex in the UK. However it's a good read, the pace is well-measured and the characters fit nicely intot he backgrounds created by the author.

This book has several of my favourite tropes. May-December age gap, medical romance between a medical intern and a senior nurse, lots of angst will they won't they and a crowd pleasing ending. 4*

3.5 stars. I like this author and her writing style. This book, however, wasn't my favorite. Firstly, it has many flashbacks, which I'm not a fan of. That's obviously personal choice, but it does factor into my rating. I like age gap romances and this one was well done from that perspective. I just felt like there were too many roadblocks put up by and to the main characters to keep it feeling like fiction. Maybe that makes the book seem more relatable but I think many of us are looking for fantasy over realism. I wasn't a fan of how much Carrie's feelings factored into their decisions to come together as a couple. She's a grown adult not a 12 year old anymore. Live your life whether she likes it or not. That whole part of the storyline felt overdone to me. I missed the medical part of this medical romance. The book takes place in a medical setting but with little drama related to that beyond the scheduling and administration of a medical environment. I just mention that so readers can set their expectations. I think I have all of this author's books and I'm glad to have read this one too, even if I've liked her others better. I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A second chance age-gap romance. Lynn Monroe, living her life after a divorce. Dr. Maggie Randall, intern, looking to have it all (a career she loves, a family, and share it all with the woman of her dreams). There appears to to be one obstacle, Lynn's "daughter" Carrie. As the story unfolds, the angst begins and continues throughout. Carrie as well as Lynn are at the center of the angst. What to do when you love someone that you think you should not. I thought the read was okay. What holds me back is the lack of depth in some aspects of the story, i.e., Carrie and Lynn's ex-wife.

The plot of this book sounded interesting, so I was really disappointed when the story fell flat. The storyline came out swinging right off the bat and I happily read along until the second main character, Lynn, was introduced. The way she was brought into the story was so confusing, I had to read the section twice to understand who this person was. There were way too many flashbacks for my taste, and the beginning of the relationship between Maggie and Lynn felt unrealistic. I found it hard to root for them and when reading a romance novel, that's everything.

3.5 Stars. This book is about Maggie Randal, a new doctor at John Hopkins in Baltimore. She came from Boston where she had just graduated med school with her friend, Carrie. Maggie has a past with Carrie's aunt. Lynn Monroe. Lynn and Maggie both had feeling for each other when Maggie was in college. They avoided their feelings since Lynn was married and wanted to give her relationship with her wife a try. Maggie went off to medical school and tried to forget about her crush on Lynn. Carrie was raised by her aunt when her parents were not able to. Carrie dropped her whole life to raise Carrie at a young age and make sure Carrie was given a good life.

I liked this book more than I thought I would. This book was solid and I enjoyed the Journey of the two main characters. There was a lot of tension in the first half of the book, which I enjoyed and it had enough drama with the two main characters to make you want to continue to read it, At first, I was not sure of the premise of the book, as an aunt and best friend relationship can be a little weird, but it was enjoyable. There was not as big of an age difference, 12 years, as there could have been which made it more believable. I would recommend this novel.

I feel like readers that may love unnecessary drama will like this book, but honestly I found the back and forth of these characters annoying. It made the two main characters annoyingly indecisive. Maybe I can give a pass to Maggie, since she’s 27 years old, but Lynn was in her late 30’s and she just played too many games for me to like her. And all I wanted was Maggie to finally call Lynn out on her bullshit! Alas, she always gave her a free pass to string her along for most of the book.

To the reader, although these characters both work at a hospital, this isn’t a medical drama book. It’s definetly focused mainly on “will they or won’t they” get together, so it’s a pretty straight-forward romance.

My biggest gripe was that some of the details in the writing didn’t make sense. I don’t want to give spoilers away, so I’ll just mention one. Maggie makes a comment about “whoever marries Pam will fall into those blue eyes” but she already knows Pam is married to Heather, who she’s met. And then in the next sentence even mentions Heather. So it’s incorrect to say “whoever” and act like it hasn’t happened. There were about 5 of those instances that just confused me, so it took me out of the story at points.

Overall, I think it just needed another pass through editing to connect all the points. And the back and forth between the MC’s just wasn’t to my taste.

Sometimes a story can be romantic fiction but the behaviour of the characters so real and possible that it leaves you unsure about the rating. There are things you wish were different because it is a romance but you just know that the people are following behavioural trajectories that are most typical.

Lynn Monroe’s sister had a baby when she was just sixteen. The sister dumped the child, Carrie, on Lynn and disappeared so Lynn became Carrie’s de facto mom, though there is just twelve years between them. A teenaged Carrie’s bestie, Maggie Randall is smitten by Lynn on first sight. Lynn feels the attraction but is married (albeit to a largely absent and rather narcissistic wife) plus she is intensely aware of the age gap so she keeps Maggie at an arm’s length. Carrie and Maggie leave Baltimore and go to Boston to pursue their education in medicine. After graduating, Maggie is back in Baltimore with an internship in John’s Hopkins, where Lynn works as a nurse and her ex-wife is the head of surgery. Inevitably, Lynn and Maggie run into each other and the pull between them still exists. Maggie believes they are meant to be but Lynn struggles with a variety of doubts.

The chemistry between Lynn and Maggie is fantastic. Both are individually likeable but there are just so many circumstantial roadblocks that it is quite frustrating. First, Maggie thinks Lynn is already involved with someone else, then Lynn thinks there is someone younger interested in Maggie, then there is the age gap, Lynn’s ex trying to put a spanner in the works, Carrie and her issues with a possible relationship between her mom and bestie…and maybe more stuff that we’re missing. Through it all Lynn kind of blows-interested-and-blows-tentative. Maggie remains steadfast in her feelings for Lynn even when she feels that Lynn doesn’t quite care as much about her. (Okay, this one also has our pet peeve – Maggie breaks someone’s heart quite badly. We hate that.) In the end, Maggie is the one who makes their relationship happen.

Through it all, we were firmly rooting for the pair but towards the end we so desperately wished that Lynn had offered more to Maggie in context of Carrie’s hang ups. It would’ve been a perfect romance if Lynn had stood up for her relationship with Maggie instead of choosing to wait out Carrie’s issues.

Despite all that, the writing is totally engrossing. Do we want the couple to be together? Yes. Do we believe that Lynn and Maggie have their HEA? Yes. (It really helps that both the ladies are very likeable.) And that is the most important thing in a romance. So we’d say, go for it.

Maggie fell in love with her best friend's Aunt/Mom - Lynn - in College. For Maggie it felt like love at first site. Problem is that 1. Lynn is like 12 years older than her and 2. She is married. Even though there is an attraction, Lynn refuses to go there with her even though her marriage is on the rocks. Fast forward 4 years. Lynn and the bestie have graduated from Med school and Maggie finds herself in residency back in the same town and hospital with Lynn works.

Okay so what did I like about Perfect Timing. Both Maggie and Lynn are likable characters (though I liked Maggie more). They have chemistry, but Lynn is not willing to go there because she doesn't want to anger her the niece she raised (Maggie's best friend). I also liked that Maggie was mature for her age so it made the age gap thing seem okay. Overall I thought it was a nice and cute love story. I did often find myself wishing it wasn't so angst-y. Lynn had a hard time making up her mind and frankly it was slightly irritating that she was hiding the relationship from her niece. There was a lot of going back and forth and I know that there are a lot of people who like a book heavy in angst...that is just not my thing. Oh, I did like the sex scenes. I thought they were well done and there was enough to keep me happy.

So i will rate this one 3.5 stars