Jeannie Chin

The House on Mulberry Street by Jeannie Chin
Blue Cedar Falls series #3. Contemporary romance. Own voice. Can be read as a stand-alone. Characters from the previous books are included but not dependent. Friends to lovers.
Elizabeth and Graham have been best friends since grade school. They’re roommates. They are friends that snuggle and watch tv and have meals together. They know their faults, habits and family issues. They are BFF’s. What Elizabeth doesn’t know, is that Graham is in love with her and he’s decided to buy a house and try to be independent from her. Elizabeth is devastated and she pushes to know why he’s tearing them apart.

So begins their self assessment to learn anew what they want in the future. Town events, family drama and friends all play parts to enrich their day-to-day living.

Graham is a great bff here. He totally supports her and helps Elizabeth’s proclivity to be late by telling her an earlier time for appointments as well of other ways. I highlighted so many great passages from his perspective but include only one here. “He liked her. Like, liked her liked her.”

It’s emotional and a journey of growth for both Elizabeth and Graham as they make the commitment to love each other. There is a lot more to the story with family dynamics and planning an art festival and additional town conflicts.
Rich in details and comforting in the wrapping.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley.… (mere)

The hero and the heroine are best friends and lived together in an apartment. However, the hero had decided to buy a house near Main Street, which began the change to the relationship. The hero has been in love with the heroine and felt that it was time for him to move on with his life. The heroine began to look at the hero differently after a kiss and facing some adversity with the art festival she wants to launch to boost her small town. What will happen to the couple as their friendship turns to more than they expected in this addition to the Blue Cedar Falls series?

This is the story of the youngest Wu sister and her devoted best friend. I enjoyed the friends-to-lovers, small-town contemporary romance. There was a wonderful group of supportive friends and family (except for one member), particularly the sisterhood that the Wu sisters have with each other. I did like the main couple, though I liked the hero more than the heroine. I would have liked more details in certain areas of the book, but it wasn't detrimental to the whole story. Overall, it's an enjoyable read and I look forward to reading more Jeannie Chin books in the future.

** Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions and thoughts in the review are my own. **… (mere)

3.7 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

She hadn't been back to Blue Cedar Falls outside of Christmas and family emergencies in thirteen years.

Second in the Blue Cedar Falls series, this focuses on the Wu's middle sister May. I haven't read the first in the series but I didn't have a problem starting here. The series is set in Blue Cedar Falls, a small town in North Carolina that May grew up in. Originally from New York, May, her mother, and two sisters moved after her parents marriage dissolved. May's mother gets remarried to a great guy named Ned and their family runs the Sweetbriar Inn. May has a loving family and close friends, especially Han Leung who's family runs the Chinese restaurant the Jade Garden but she's mercilessly bullied at school by the popular girl Jenny for being Chinese. All May can think about is getting free of the town and bullying, when her friendship with Han turns into a dating relationship, May, kind of blindly, pushes him to leave with her.

Wasn't it bad enough that he was the one who got away? Did he also still have to be the best-looking guy she'd ever met? The funniest and the easiest to talk to?

Han faces his own racism but it's never as bad for him as May and he wasn't fully aware of the extent of how much it affects May, he loves his hometown and is starting to not want to leave. When tragedy strikes and his father dies suddenly, he decides to stay after graduation and help his mother with the restaurant and his two younger sisters. He breaks it off with May not wanting to hold her back and they end up not seeing each other for thirteen years, until May is given an assignment by her travel magazine to write about Blue Cedar Falls and the small-town festival and internet sensation cat that just so happens to be her mom's. May doesn't want to go back because of how it brings back the pain of her highschool years, the guilt tripping she feels from her mom and older sister June, and the possibility of running into Han. However, once May starts to settle in, she begins to realize that her escaping might have just given her the strength and confidence to deal with bullies and now she's ready to appreciate the town's small charms, along with rekindling a certain romance.

But that was the thing. With people you really loved...
You did what you had to do. Even when they couldn't find a way to ask it of you.

When I started reading this, right away I was pulled in by the emotions, for what looks like a fairly new author, I was impressed with how this aspect of the writing popped. When May is going back home her anxiousness about how distant she feels from family, past memories of bullying, and knowing the only man she ever loved is there, were felt by me as the reader. Those jumbled emotions of hurt, pain, and love were threaded deep throughout the story. I thought the author did a great job of not putting full blame on anyone person, the racist bully Jenny even got a little understanding thread that I'm not sure the character deserved. With May feeling alienated from her family, she has distanced herself from them to pursue her career and the guilt tripping June does, because from her perspective, May has ditched her family ties. It's a theme throughout the book of chasing your personal dreams or maybe not getting or doing all you personally want in favor of supporting family members. This creates solid angst and swirls of emotions.

Friends with the girl he used to be in love with and who still made his whole body hum whenever they got close. What could go wrong?

May was the side of chasing her dreams hell or high water while Han was more trying to stay true to his wants but leaning more towards family values. Readers get the story first from May that after Han's father died he ditched his plans to leave to New York with May to stay and help his family. I liked how May had understanding for this, even if it wasn't what she wanted him to do. A little later we get Han's perspective and readers learn that he never felt the same way about their hometown that May did, he actually liked it there and felt steamrolled by May to leave and when he was trying to tell her, his father died and, at the moment, didn't resent the fact he felt he had to stay to help his mother. The hurt and love with the scene from Han's point-of-view of him breaking it off with May because he wanted her to achieve her dreams and not tie her down was so good!

But deep down, it felt like the earth beneath his feet was shifting. For the first time in ages, things were changing.
And it was going to turn out to be either the best thing to ever happen to him.
Or the worst.

By 50% the air is, mostly, cleared between the two, even if there is still some lingering hurt of needs and wants for life paths not matching up, and May and Han just can't stop each other from falling back together. This had some open door heat and I loved it because this couple had that hurt and tension that you just want to see explode on page. Even while they're semi-together there is still the lingering end date, May's assignment is only supposed to keep her in town for the week but she decides to extend it another week to cover the Taste Festival, and Han seems to be holding in a secret about something to do with May's tormentor Jenny (it's pretty obvious what the secret is). The second half has the high of the couple together heating up the sheets and growing to know one another again but the tension of that looming end date, unless they can figure it out.

This was an invitation to do something unbelievably stupid. Something that was going to hurt.

Coming into the series in book two, it was still easy to follow the family and friend circles and I actually would have liked more scenes of the Wu sisters together, there's June and May hashing out their issue and May and her younger sister Elizabeth hanging out but I would have loved to have “seen” the times they hung out all together and with their mom, because of how strong the emotional pull with May and this storyline was. Around 60% I thought the story staggered a little bit as May and Han are said to be just traveling around neighboring towns for May to highlight in her article and I would have liked that to be cut to streamline the story more or May and her sisters to be added for more of emotional punch. I can see how that might try to pull this more into book club fiction but I thought the romance plot and Han as a character, with his own issues with his mother and romance with May, was strong enough to keep this firmly in romance genre.

The only answer left was that he had to put his heart---and maybe his entire conception of his life---on the line.
If he wanted to be with May, he had to make the decision and commit.
Quite simply, he had to fight.

At 80% we get the black moment where May learns about Han's secret with Jenny and she lets her hurt blind her for a while. Honestly, even at this point and close to 90% I wasn't sure about the happily ever after, I know it's romance genre and was going to have one but May and Han took a very sweet time to get there. The mixture of happy or content, growing up and how life experience gives you different dreams, seeing things in a more emotionally stable way, and staying true to yourself but also to your dreams were all added into this ending. The ending felt true to the characters, nothing forced, and I liked how I could see how May and Han got there as the building blocks were given throughout the story. This had feeling true emotion, open door heat, family dynamics, and a romance that you couldn't help rooting for, definitely a contemporary romance to pick up.… (mere)

3.75/5 stars!

The hero arrives at the small town to fulfill his dead best friend's dream of opening a bar, he meets the heroine when she came to his building due to the noise level. There's instant attraction between the strong-minded individuals. How will the two stubborn people reach their happy ending when they're facing obstacles together and as individuals?

This is a nice read from a new-to-me author. I enjoyed the small-town vibe and the diverse group of characters. I liked the heroine a lot more than the hero but do feel the connection between them. I liked the exploration of the characters' background and how they evolved throughout the story. And as a personal preference, I do feel there are more details needed in certain parts of the story. Overall, I liked the book and look forward to reading more Jeannie Chin books in the future.

**Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions and thoughts in the review are my own.**… (mere)