Both the third book in this series, and the first book I've read by this author (the other two books have different authors).

As noted in other reviews for this series: this series follows three friends who own and operate Flippin' Fantastic. Book one was written by the only author in this trilogy who I had previously read (Bryce Oakley) and follows James, the one who builds stuff and the like. The second book follows Mia, the real estate agent one of the three. The third book, this one here, follows Darby, the happy bouncy one who is something like the interior decorator type.

Darby meets her love interest easily enough. The three Flippin' women end up at a bar for a New Year's 5-minute dating rotation thingie. Astrid is the bar's door person. Bouncer. Whatever title she has at Revel (the bar). They meet when Darby ends up outside to use her inhaler - Astrid tells her to move further away from the door thinking that Darby was actually about to smoke. Thereby the two meet.

Darby turns out to be a deeper person than just "a bouncy happy person", and Astrid turns out to be more fragile and flighty than she appeared in prior books in the series. The brief moments she popped up in those prior books.

Flighty? Well, weirdly, just like James, Astrid keeps having thoughts, and occasionally out loud words, about how she might be moving on from Denver, and how she's been there a while so . . .. Just like James was mumbling in her book.

Right, so, this is the longest of the three books, albeit still in the "short novel" range at 150 pages. hmm, I thought I was going to end up saying I liked this one best of all, but it appears I rated the first book in the series slightly a higher rating.

Why did I initially think I'd rated this one highest of all? Because some of the scenes that seemed to be foreshortened in the other books, though not all of them. There are three specific scenes that get repeated in all three books, three parties: New Years eve party, Super Bowl party, and a third party. Eh, I'm not sure what I'm referring to here. Just that the Super Bowl party seemed more detailed in this book than in the other books.

Right, so. Liked the characters, story, etc. Also liked the cat.

Rating: 4.88

February 20 2021 ( )