I think as I was reading and more problems with the plot appeared, I disengaged from the storyline and just kept pushing ahead without trying to get back into it. So at the end, I was just left with a lot of complaints and not much positive feedback. I think my main issue with this book was that it felt out of touch. Not my kind of book, sorry

Being the 1st book I have read from PJ Trebelhorn , it was a very sweet , loving story.

This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but if you are looking for a nice easy romance then this book will give you the fix you need.

There has been mixed reviews but if your a hopeless romantic then please pick up this book.
The characters are very likeable and as mentioned before it is honestly a sweet book.

Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this book for an honest review.

I look forward to what Trebelhorn writes next.

This was a great and super sweet novel! It was an enemy to lovers theme and was well written. When Riley in Vic were in school they ran in very different circles. Vic had money and Riley was trailer trash. As soon as she could Vic left town and moved to NYC. But a wedding and high school reunion has Vic back in town and she wants to make it up to Riley.

Very boring and uninspired could not even finish. Would not recommend. It jedt fell flat with me in both its writing and character development.

I finished this one but didn't really care to at the same time. Nothing was keeping me going but I did want to see how it was going to end.

I really liked the concept of someone getting the chance to show how one can grow and change from their actions whilst in high school to a better version of themselves 20 years later. Vic gets this chance when she goes back to her hometown and meets Riley again. Given how horrible Vic, her sister Vanessa, and her friends had been to Riley, it is not a surprise that Riley does not want anything to do with Vic, her family or friends. But since Vic is determined to show that she is a different person now, and feels very drawn to Riley, Vic does everything she can to build a friendship with Riley. Will Riley believe that Vic is a different person? And will all the people around Vic allow a relationship to develop between the two women?
Overall, this story had a good concept but I found that the characters lacked depth. I would have liked to see a better build-up of the main characters trying to build a friendship. Also, some of the actions of the secondary characters such as Vic's sister Vanessa, and her mother seemed quite juvenile and extremely petty (but I guess people can be that way too!).

The cover for this book threw me off a little because the girls look so young and the main characters in this book are almost 40. I would momentarily forget every time I saw the cover.


So this is an enemies to lovers kind of story. The MC, Riley, was bullied by Vic's "friend group" in high school, and while Vic didn't necessarily contribute to the bullying {her twin sister did that}, she didn't try to stop it or shut it down either. Later, Riley saves Vanessa's life {Vic's twin} and no one from the family even acknowledges it or thanks her. These are both pretty big issues for me.


Riley has a lot of trauma in her past, from the bullying and from a neglectful, alcoholic mother. This has left her with a lot of insecurities and made her to feel like no one would ever love her and that she is not good enough. But she is secure enough in her friendships and her choice of career. And she knows who she is and doesn't compromise that.


Vic was confused about her sexuality in high school, and afraid of the bullying being turned on herself, so she let it happen. After coming out in college, her mother disowns her, though her twin, Vanessa, and their dad still fully support her. Vic grew up with money and is successful in her career, working for the family company. She is constantly worried that the women in her life are after her money, because most of the women she has chosen in the past were.


While Riley and Vic are incredibly attracted to each other, there is not a lot of trust between them. While they agree to explore their relationship and to take things slow, there are a lot of misunderstandings. Even at the conclusion of the book, I think they are still keeping things to themselves that they should be sharing with each other.


As for the other characters in the book, while Riley doesn't have any support from her mother, she does have an amazing best friend, Megan, and surrogate parents/friends Nancy and Andy who have always been there for her. Vic has a lot of superficial people in her life, but her dad is absolutely amazing in his support of her, but is still with her mother and allows her mother to treat her like garbage. That is a weird dynamic for me.

That just leaves Vic's twin. Vanessa has supposedly changed from the bully she was in high school, but she still definitely comes across as a snob. And while she privately supports Vic and her life choices, she privately tells people that would seem otherwise.


Overall, I thought this was a cute read. I really liked Riley's character and want great things for her relationship with Vic, but there are a few things I mentioned above that kept this from being a 5-star read for me.


Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book through Net Galley and the publisher {Bold Stroked Books} in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I had mixed feelings about this book. The good: I liked both main characters, their insecurities and issues were believable, they came across as well rounded characters and they had good chemistry. The writing was engaging, I never felt bored or restless at any point. The premise was interesting and caught my attention. The bad: The supporting characters were mostly awful - Vic's social circle was so terrible and shallow, I had a hard time believing a character like Vic would hang out with them. Vanessa was also an entirely unlikeable character - she was really hypocritical and I didn't really buy her sudden turnaround at the end. The conflict between the lead characters was solved way too quickly with both characters behaving in a way that completely went against their previous behaviour and making massive leaps that I felt were too soon.

What would you do if you found out the person you had a crush on also had a crush on you? Enter Riley and Victoria who see each after many years at a reunion. The feelings are still there they find, for both of them. Riley still lives in their home town working at a movie theater. Victoria is there for the reunion and her sister's bachelorette party.
Riley and Victoria begin seeing each other. Victoria finds out that Riley has a opportunity to purchase the movie theater that she works at. She cannot understand why Riley doesn't jump at the opportunity. Until Riley tells her she doesn't have that much money. Victoria offers to buy it for her. Of course, Riley will not let her.
Money that Victoria has more than enough of and the little that Riley does have begins to divide them. Will love overcome or will it be too much for them to deal with?
I would recommend this.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 10%. I like the premise of the story - second chance romance after not seeing each other for 20 years. However right from the start the author’s writing style didn’t work for me. The opening scene has Riley rescuing one of the Thayer twins from a car accident. The scene is written in a way that feels really immature to me - including Riley “joking” to herself that she wouldn’t have helped if she knew it was Vanessa. I continued for a while but ultimately I think I’m not the right reader for this book. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

I rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Victoria Thayer comes from a very wealthy family and helps run the family business in New York City. After coming out, she was told by her mother, Vera, to stay away and not come back. However, Victoria has a twin with whom she is close, and who is now getting married. The problem is that her sister, Vanessa, is having the wedding back home at the family estate and she wants her sister Victoria to be her bridesmaid. So, Vera reluctantly agrees to have Victoria in the house for the wedding functions only and then she must leave.

The other main character is Riley Warren. She never left Wolf Lake Bay and is the manager at the small movie theater in town. Riley dreams of owning the quaint theater someday, but she has always been poor and will probably never have enough money to fulfill her dream.

Riley and the Thayer twins all went to grade school together. The Thayer twins were part of a clique headed by Vanessa who enjoyed bullying other students who were not part of the “in” crowd. Riley was one of the main targets for this bullying. While growing up, Riley had a crush on Victoria. As it turns out, Victoria, while struggling with her own feelings, had a crush on Riley. Of course, neither knew about the other’s feelings. When Victoria and Vanessa return to Wolf Lake Bay for the wedding, Riley does not want to have anything to do with the twins, but circumstances throw them together.

I enjoyed this book. It was a light romance with a smooth storyline. Was the story believable? Yes, in a fairytale manner of speaking, and we all can benefit from an occasional fairytale. Ms. Trebelhorn did a good job on character development. Readers will appreciate Hopes and Dreams.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

ARc received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This one had an interesting premise, but it didn’t live up to it. This features MC Riley, who manages a movie theatre in her home town, and Vic who is returning home for her twin sister’s wedding. Vic and her sister Vanessa used to bully Riley back in high school, and Riley and Vic both had unrequited crushes on the other.

So, as I said, interesting premise, and both Riley and Vic are interesting and likeable characters individually, but for me the chemistry didn’t quite gel. Although I did like that Vic had thought of what she’d done to Riley over the years and made amends right away. I still couldn’t get over Riley actually wanting to be with Vic after the way she’d treated her though.

Megan, Riley’s bff was a good character, but Vanessa, Vic’s twin blew hot and cold, and I couldn’t warm to her. The other issue was that both women had terrible relationships with their mothers, who were very cartoonishly drawn, and much of the dialogue and the way those scenes turned out just seemed over the top to me. Same with the reunion scene, I didn’t buy that people would actually act like that at a reunion.

Then there’s the constant harping on the past and Vic’s insecurity that Riley only wants her for her money. Riley also has insecurities and these lead to the requisite breakup, which is resolved blindingly fast. I didn’t buy the HEA, in fact, I barely bought the ending as a HFN. I wish I’d liked this as much as I thought I would. 3 stars.

Riley has lived all her life in a small town while Victoria Thayer with all her wealth left town after high school. The two reunite at a high school reunion when Victoria returns home for her sister's wedding, and their history comes bubbling to the surface. Riley was bullied all throughout high school by Victoria's sister Vanessa and their group of friends. Old hurts and new insecurities butt heads with their attraction. Will their new found love survive?

The past few books by PJ Trebelhorn have been a bit of a miss for me. I do really enjoy their writing style overall, with cute small towns and nice secondary characters and great chemistry between the mains. However this book had a little too many coincidences and inconsistencies that made me have to suspend belief a little more than I like and some of the many mentions of wealth made me feel little icky in this book. There is a lot of angst and family drama in this book but it is fairly well balanced with some lighter, sweeter moments.

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Now that is a heckuva start to a story. Yikes. Car wreck.

And then from there, it got even more intense. The emotions in this novel sorta floored me. I'm not sure how Trebelhorn did it, or why it was different, but, while most lesbian fiction books definitely have emotion running through them (they'd be boring if they didn't), in this one it seemed as though those emotions were right at the surface of the book.

It's about Riley and Vic, and it's sort of a second chance romance--ish. The two women went to school together in Wolf Bay. Vic's family and Vic are rich. Riley and her Mom weren't, and Riley's Mom was an alcholic too. That made life pretty hellish for Riley. And, while Vic sorta had a very hidden crush on Riley, Vanessa (Vic's twin sister) and their friends bullied Riley relentlessly, especially their senior year.

But, it's 20 years later. Vic is back for her sister's wedding and a lot has changed for her, and for Riley too. They slowly grow closer. But, there's still a lot of stuff hanging on from when they were kids, a lot of very very heavy stuff.

They, as well as the other characters were pretty awesomely written and I liked them (or well written and I hated them as I was supposed to). I wish there'd been more Tyler, but, overall it was a really really fun read.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books.

Victoria (Vic) Thayer hadn’t been back to Wolf Bay for a while, it fact more than a few years but she was returning now for one reason and one reason only. And that was to be with her twin sister, Vanessa on her wedding day. She was asked to leave and never come back by her mother Vera, upon finding out Vic was a lesbian. Her kind was not welcome but Vera didn’t have a choice if she wanted Vanessa to use the family estate for her wedding.
Even though she didn’t want to work in the family business, Vic couldn’t find a way to quit and be able to work on her painting. Now going back seems to have given her the courage she needed. She wasn’t moving back to be close to her mother but to hopefully develop a relationship with the girl she’d crushed on in high school, Riley Warren.
Riley Warren never forgot the Thayer twins. They along with their friends made high school a nightmare for her. Riley grew up poor, getting her clothing from a local charity. She wouldn’t find any comfort living with an alcoholic mother who just plain and simply didn't want her around. She had been told that all her life. Her saving grace was the older couple who looked out for her and her best friend Megan, who she now shared a home with.
Working at the local theatre was not going to make her rich but if she could find a way to purchase the place she could at least make enough so she wasn’t always broke. Now with the twins coming home for the wedding and Vic asking Riley if they could have Vanessa's bridal shower at the theatre was just going too far.
Ms Trebelhorn has a way of writing that when you start reading you just don’t want to put down. Both MC’s are likable and engaging with just enough twists in the plot to make for a very enjoyable read.
ARC via NetGalley/Bold Stroke Books

Mushy Awwwws
Riley has spent her whole life in her small home town. As a kid she was bullied terribly because she was poor, had an alcoholic mother and was a lesbian. As a result, her self-esteem has never been overly high but she doesn’t give up and in spite of living paycheck to paycheck she has hopes and dreams that keep her going. Vic and her sister Vanessa are twins and filthy rich. They were among the biggest tormentors back in the day. What no one knew is that Vic had such confusing feelings for the other girl but it wouldn’t be until much later that she would understand. Now they have a second chance but there is so much standing in their way. Can they find their way out of the past or is there just too much damage to forge ahead?

PJ Trebelhorn is one of my go to authors when I need a really well written, feel good romance. She has never failed me and this book is just another showcase of her wonderful talent. Riley and Vic have much more in common than they knew and it was interesting to see how they deal with the things and people that made them who they are. I loved watching these two women bond and fall in love while doing their best to forgive and move on. This story has so many emotions and so much drama that kept me hooked and reading well into the night. I laughed and cried, got mad and happy and felt so much relief when things started to go right again. I fell a little in love with both Riley and Vic and wanted the best for them both. They are characters I will think about for a while to come. If you love sweet, dramatic reunion, enemy to friend to lover books, this one is one of the best.

This story is about a hate-to-love romance between two girls who have known each oiyher since high school.
Vic's sister Vanessa used to bully Riley along with her friends in high school, and Riley was glad when she finally said goodbye to them all. But now Vanessa is back to get married and she's brought Vic along with her. Vic, who it seems is now very openly a lesbian, the one thing Riley was bullied for the most.

This story had some potential, if the characters would have truly grown through the years and changed (which I do think Vic did) I would have appreciated the story a lot more. What o didn't like was the way Riley went from hating Vic and everything she stood for to kissing her and not being able to stop thinking about her within 24 hours of them meeting again.

There was lots of things about this book I didn't like or agree with, but I'd rather not dwell on those. The story had a great character arc for Vic, and I enjoyed watching how Riley and Vic's relationship played out (if I ignored the time line).

Cute, enemies-to-lovers, rich-girl/poor-girl, small-town romance.

CW: remembrance of high school bullying and suicidal ideation

The Thayer twins made Riley Warren's high school days miserable to the extreme - bullying her for her poverty, alcoholic mother, and lesbianism. Victoria Thayer has lived with regret for her actions for twenty years. On her return to Wolf Bay for sister, Vanessa's wedding, Vic and Riley reconnect. With Vic apologizing profusely for the abuse, and both admitting their attractions (then and now) to one another. But can two women with such a fraught past, and from such different social classes ever expect a HEA?

**I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**

This has been a pretty good romance in my opinion. It has its fair share of drama, the kind that looks like at any moment it's going to blow everything up. Because the two main characters have a story that comes from high school. One of them, Riley, was then the recipient of the bullying that the group of friends of the other main character, Vic. But that bullying situation hid the attraction between Vic and Riley, which they separately were noticing. And now, many years later, the two of them meet again and that pull still is there.

The part that complicates the matter is that Vic has a twin sister, Vanessa, with whom she does not have much resemblance in terms of character although they are physically identical. Vic and Vanessa belong to a very wealthy family in the village and their mother is very classy, conceited and snobbish, as well as certainly disrespectful towards those she considers to be of a lower class. And Riley has an alcoholic mother who has neglected her since she was a child and who has never loved her. So Riley is doubly self-conscious about the school abuse and about her mother, who is also her only family.

But luckily for the story, both Riley and Vic are not bitter or spiteful people. Because Vic also has its own complexes, on the one hand the contempt of her mother since she came out as a lesbian and on the other the thinking that all her relationships are with her only for economic interest.Her family and friends don't help Vic much in that regard. Riley has better luck with her best friend Megan.

So despite all these difficulties and doubts from both of them, the story has developed quite nicely and has been very much to my liking.

A capturing romance with some angst, which captures you right from the start.

Riley: Raised by an verbally abusive, drunk woman in a trailer park, Riley wants to live life without being sucked into her mother’s negative spiral. The verbal abuse centers on Riley being unlovable, which has severely affected Riley self-image and self-confidence. Riley’s biggest dream is being able to own the Movie theatre she supervise, but due to her low funds she realize this is probably never going to happen.

Vic: Grew up in a rich family with her twin sister as her best friend, a demanding mother and a wonderful father. Were part of the cool crowd which terrorize Riley due to Riley being different and poor. This makes her feel awful, and follows her as her biggest regret. In collage she realize she’s gay and her mother reacts by wanting to disown her. Vic’s biggest hope and dream is being loved for who she is, and not for her money.

Pro:
Extremely well written start – It took me half a paragraph to get hooked by the story. The characters and the setting grabbed me right off the batch and kept me interested during the entire book.
Redemption – After reuniting with Riley, Vic starts her own walk towards redemption from how she stood by when Riley was badly treated. Vic knew even back then that it was wrong, but wasn’t strong enough to be able to stand up for what’s right.
Slow burn – This story focus more on the personal growth the characters go through to be able to be their true self, than an intense romance. Though the romance is a central part of the story, I enjoy that they take the time to get to know one another. The romance, and the characters, feel real.
Some angst – You feel right from the start that somewhere there will be a twist. The angst is wonderfully written and how the characters act feels real and true.

Con:
No epilogue – This is not a major con, but I would have wanted to see how it all works out in the end.

This review is based on NetGalley ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.