Book Review: Flip This Love by Maggie Wells

Flip This Love by Maggie Wells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Flip This Love by Maggie Wells strikes the perfect balance between smart and steamy. Add in two truly likeable main characters, as witty and accomplished as they are outwardly attractive, and we’ve got another winner on our hands from the Coastal Heat series.

In this title, the author masterfully handles inner conflict, delving into the characters’ family dynamics and even pertinent high school experiences. Furthermore, the story itself features my favorite kind of hero—a self-made entrepreneur who works with his hands and who treats his mother like a queen. Harley Cade also pursues the heroine with near-singular focus, at the same time holding her accountable for any unfair or juvenile behavior. Yet even then, he does so with care.

The heroine’s backstory is that of surviving her family’s fall from grace. At the novel’s beginning, the state of Laney Tarrington’s finances, and of her emotional support system, leaves much to be desired. Nevertheless, a strong woman emerges from the debris of her family’s crumbling empire. As a reader, I sympathized with and admired the heroine’s efforts to better her situation on all fronts.

In reading this novel, it became very clear to me that writing is a craft for Maggie Wells—something she makes look easy, ironically due to the care and effort she puts into each element, from word choice to pacing to sentence structure. For anyone with reservations about third person point of view, this author delivers as well as or better than anyone out there. And I say that as a firm proponent of the first-person narrative.

Like the first in the series (Going Deep), etiquette, tradition, wealth and bloodlines, and “saving face” reign supreme in this southern setting. Another pattern I’ve noticed is the way the author makes eating (esp. with one’s hands) a sexy act. In Going Deep, it’s the rib eating scene I’m thinking of; in Flip this Love, it’s crawfish. Both are messy, both undeniably sexy with Wells’ flavor sprinkled in.

All in all, another great read from an author I’m keeping my eye on!

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