An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street - Jaimie Admans - ★★★★.½
AUTHOR: Jaimie Admans
GENRE: Romance-Drama
RATING: 4.5 stars.
In a Nutshell: This book has overthrown all my earlier Jaimie Admans novels to settle at the top favourite position! Loved the main characters, the setting, the connection to ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and of course, the nod to ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Much recommended to readers of clean romances. You can’t go wrong with Jaimie Admans!
Note: I apologise in advance for sounding like an enthusiastic puppy in the review. But oh my God, this book!
Story Synopsis:
Since her mother died about a year ago, Marnie Platt has become a semi-recluse, shunning her concerned friends from Ever After Street. Her attitude also affects the sales in her beloved bookshop. However, when an unknown neighbour files a complaint about the abandoned bookshop garden, Marnie gets a wake-up call. She knows that if she has to save the bookshop, the garden, and herself, she can’t afford to waste more time grieving. Luckily, her grumpy neighbour, a gardener and florist, hears about her problem and by some miracle, decides to help with the garden. Soon, a begrudging friendship forms between them, even though her neighbour is determined to remain as mysterious as ever. Can Marnie convince her new friend that life is worth embracing, when she herself isn’t sure about what it holds?
The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Marnie.
There are a couple of things you need to know first:
1. I no longer read romance novels. The only time I pick up a book from this genre is when it promises to offer me something beyond plain romance. So for romances, the title or the cover can’t sway me. It’s the blurb that makes a difference to my decision.
2. ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is one of my all-time favourite books, with Fitzwilliam Darcy being the top ranker on my Complex Characters’ list. My close friends know how fanatical I am about Darcy (especially if he looks like Colin Firth! *swoon!*) As such, I NEVER knowingly pick up books where a character is named ‘Darcy’, because these inevitably turn the original into a caricature.
Why is this important?
Simple. I picked up this book merely on seeing Jaimie Admans’ name on the cover and broke my own rule of reading the blurb first. Her novels always have excellent settings, and her plots go way beyond typical romances. Moreover, I had enjoyed the first book of this series: A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street, which was somewhat based on Cinderella. So I didn’t feel the need to read the blurb before opting for this standalone sequel.
And then came the big discovery: The mmc of this book is named ‘Darcy’! 😱
This could have gone either way, considering what big shoes this new Darcy would have to fill in my mind where Jane Austen’s Darcy is on a permanent pedestal. My rating shows you how successful Admans has been in her endeavour.
Where do I begin praising this book!? It hits almost all the marks at a 100% level!
Bookish Yays:
😍 The journey: Everyone knows that romances are predictable. You read these novels not for the ending, but for the journey. And the journey as well as the destination are adorable in this book.
😍 The homage to ‘Beauty and the Beast’, one of my all-time favourite fairy tales. Admittedly, most of this is based on the Disney version, but Admans sneaks in a few references to the original as well. Does great justice to the ‘tale as old as time.’
😍 The references to ‘Pride and Prejudice’– what a way to trick an Austenite into gushing over a contemporary romance story!
😍 The setting: The gorgeous Ever After Street, a place I would gladly love to visit.
😍 Marnie: The garrulous introvert with a giant heart. She acts her age, which isn’t something I can claim about most romance heroines of today. Loved her character!
😍 Darcy: Ahem… what can I say! If ever there were a competition for the second best Darcy of all time, this Darcy would easily win! I was totally unprepared for his name, so when I first saw it, you should have seen the big Cheshire-Cat grin on my face! 😁
😍 Miss Potts the cat: Awwww! 😻
😍 The secondary characters: Except for Rick, every single character has a well-sketched personality. Cleo is a good addition to the set. Witt and Sadie from the first book also make a strong appearance.
😍 The focus on grief and mental health: Well-handled for both Marnie and Darcy.
😍 The bookshop and all that is connected to it: What book lover will hate these elements!?
😍 The romance: A perfect combination of the friends-to-lovers as well as the grumpy-vs-sunshine tropes. As someone who passionately (What an ironic word choice!) hates insta-romances, I loved this slow development of feelings between the lead characters. Give me this old-school love any day! No steam, all clean except for a few kisses – Yippee!
😍 The physical “flaws”: The focus on physical perfection and the stress on attraction based on looks is a hallmark of almost all romance novels. This book ignores both these elements, and offers to us a love story that is more a meeting of minds than of bodies. The only complaint I would make in this regard is that the book over-compensates on the word ‘beautiful’ after the “reveal”, as if we the readers need to be convinced that you-know-who is gorgeous. We don't!
😍 The open secrets: Marnie faces two minor mysteries in the story, but to the readers, both of these are as clear as day. This isn’t a mystery novel, of course, so the guessability of the suspense wasn’t a disappointment to me. Rather, the anticipation of when she would realise what was so obvious to the reader added to the fun.
😍 The missing “touchy-feely” stuff: Now, you won’t really understand this point without context. In each of my reviews of a Jaimie Admans novel (three so far!), I have complained about how much of the focus is on touch (in non-bedroom scenes), and why it doesn’t work for me because touch isn’t my love language. A small part of me feels like Ms. Admans saw my earlier reviews and went, “Good Lord! This Rosh just doesn’t shut up about my dear characters’ need for touching each other! Let me teach her a lesson!” She then formulated the devious plan of writing a romance story where her characters literally cannot touch each other for a major chunk of the book, and for perfectly genuine reasons. What can I say now? Jaimie Admans-1: Rosh-0.
Bookish Nays:
😐 The only thing I didn’t like about this book is the character of Rick, who is clearly based on Gaston from the Disney adaptation of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. I wouldn’t say that self-centred people like him don’t exist in the world; they do. But I didn’t get why he was so bent on getting Marnie back. The motive stays unclear, and his behaviour sticks to the expected obnoxious level throughout. As a result, his character is the only one that feels clichéd.
😐 A tiny complaint about the cover as well. Though I love the two shops, the castle in the background, and the roses, the couple on the cover doesn’t match the description of the couple in the book.
That's it! The rest? *Chef’s kiss!*
I think the author totally didn’t play fair towards ensuring my strong approval rating for this book. Imagine throwing Darcy, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, a bookshop, a cat, a fairy-tale based street, and an old-fashioned romance at me like that! What’s a girl to do!
Admans recently revealed on her Instagram page that she is currently working on Book Four of this series. All I will say is: You have some super-high expectations to live up to after this one, Ms. Admans!
Strongly recommended to all lovers of the romance genre who prefer their love stories slow and steady rather than steamy and speedy. You can read this sequel as a standalone book, but seriously, why would you want to disregard the first of the series? Read both!
My thanks to Rachel's Random Resources, Boldwood Books, and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of “An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street”, and for allowing me to be a part of this blog tour. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.
The book is available for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
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Blurb:
A brand new and utterly enchanting series by bestselling author Jaimie Admans. A picture-perfect town, a place where dreams come true. Welcome to Ever After Street...
A tale as old as time…
Since her mum’s death, Marnie Platt has shut herself away from everyone who cares about her. Worse, her beloved bookshop on Ever After Street is suffering too. With sales down and the shop’s garden falling into disrepair, Marnie risks losing the very last thing she loves. Until a chance encounter with her surly and reclusive neighbour….
Dark and brooding, Darcy O'Connell likes to keep himself to himself. But when he hears Marnie needs help, he can’t turn his back on her. Soon they are spending most evenings together in her enchanted garden and a friendship starts to bloom…
With the help of old and new friends on Ever After Street, Marnie's bookshop begins to thrive again, and with Darcy's kindness, she starts to get her sparkle back too. She just can't understand why Darcy continues to shut himself away - especially from her. Can she convince him it isn't too late to embrace life, and maybe love, again?
Because every story, even theirs, deserves a happy ending….
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Author Jaimie Admans:
Jaimie Admans is the bestselling author of several romantic comedies – including The Little Christmas Shop on Nutcracker Lane and The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters. She lives in South Wales and was previously published by HQ Digital. Her new work for Boldwood, The Ever After Street Series, is based on the magical world of fairytales, the first title of which was released in Spring 2023.
Connect with her on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/be_the_spark
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimieadmans1/
Newsletter Sign-up: https://bit.ly/JaimieAdmansNews
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Check out this book:
Buy Links: https://mybook.to/everaftersocial
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This has been a stop on the #AnEnchantedMomentOnEverAfterStreet blog tour conducted by Rachel's Random Resources. (@rararesources) Thanks for stopping by!
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