I have read previous Stacey Ballis novels and though I may have liked or almost loved some of them I have never out and out loved one before. This novel touched so many things with me that I read it all over again when I finished it.

This novel focuses on Jenna who is still adjusting to losing her best friend and business partner Aimee. Aimee was Jenna's rock and without her around to tell her what to do she feels herself floundering. However, it seems that Aimee has one last to do for Jenna which is to manage the finances for her friend's widowed husband Wayne. Jenna is prepared to do anything but that since she never understood what Aimee saw in Wayne. With Jenna also starting a new relationship with someone that she keeps thinking is out of her league.

What I really liked about this novel is that you have Jenna struggling to come to grips with the loss of her best friend and trying to do her best to not let Wayne see how much she dislikes him. There were several laugh out loud moments for me. The best things were when Jenna would have the "Aimee voice" telling her the truth no hold barred. I know that when I lost my mother for several years afterwards I would automatically start thinking about what would she say if she could see me doing this or would she be ready to kick me in the butt for going out with another loser.

I have no criticisms of this novel except a very minor one which is that I wish that we had Jenna being more gracious with her parents. I never got why Jenna was so bent out of shape with her mother and father actually wanting to know what was going on with her or trying to check in to see how she was dealing with the loss of Aimee. I really wish we as readers had gotten more backstory there or at least Jenna's acknowledgement she was being irrational in some way.

There was also a new surprise of us seeing a couple from her previous novel, "Off the Menu" make an appearance which I loved.

I would definitely recommend this novel! ( )

When Aimee dies she leaves behind an absolutely devastated husband and best friend. She knows that her best friend Jenna never liked her husband Wayne. As the reader I felt like Jenna was super hard on Wayne, I was relieved that she respected Aimee's wishes and really truly tried to get to know Wayne and see what she loved about him. Aimee asked Jenna in her will to basically keep Wayne from making any ridiculous purchases and blowing his savings. She did this more to force the two of them to get to know each other, thankfully she wasn't trying to get them to fall in love she was just trying to get them to be support for each other.

I loved seeing the growth that Jenna made. I loved them showing the softer side of the very awkward Wayne. I loved that she included some recipes that sound fantastic. I enjoyed that she had dogs in this book too and I thought her cameo of previous characters Alana and RJ was fantastic. If you haven't read the book they're in, Off the Menu, definitely pick it up. ( )

I loved this book! As a 80's girl with a inner geek, this book was filled with awesome references for 80's stuff, Sci-fi stuff and of course Star Wars!! I loved the main character, Jenna, who is dealing with the deep grief of the death of her best friend. The fact that she can hear her friend talking to her in a inner way deepened my ability to associate with her. Who hasn't heard that person we loved talking to us personally at times after their death? This book had the perfect amount of romance, not too erotic or mushy. And, when the character of Elliot is introduced, with his beautiful comic book store, I would have jumped on him just for his incredible store and collections! Lol. A great read. ( )

I really enjoyed this book right up until the very end. I was so disappointed by the ending. Without giving too much away, it seemed to be building towards a happy ending, but was never fully resolved and very abruptly skipped to 8 months later. There seemed to be a big gap in story line in that 8 month time frame that was missing. I really wanted to give it 4 stars, but with the poor ending, I ended up giving it just 2. ( )