Brown-Eyed Girl
Brown-Eyed Girl by Lisa Kleypas
Description: Wedding planner Avery Crosslin may be a rising star in Houston society, but she doesn’t believe in love–at least not for herself. When she meets wealthy bachelor Joe Travis and mistakes him for a wedding photographer, she has no intention of letting him sweep her off her feet. But Joe is a man who goes after what he wants, and Avery can’t resist the temptation of a sexy southern charmer and a hot summer evening.
After a one night stand, however, Avery is determined to keep it from happening again. A man like Joe can only mean trouble for a woman like her, and she can’t afford distractions. She’s been hired to plan the wedding of the year–a make-or-break event.
But complications start piling up fast, putting the wedding in jeopardy, especially when shocking secrets of the bride come to light. And as Joe makes it clear that he’s not going to give up easily, Avery is forced to confront the insecurities and beliefs that stem from a past she would do anything to forget.
The situation reaches a breaking point, and Avery faces the toughest choice of her life. Only by putting her career on the line and risking everything–including her well-guarded heart–will she find out what matters most.
Review: One of my favorite Lisa Kleypas books is Blue-Eyed Devil. I reread it every few months. I love the Travis family and how they support each other. When I learned that she was finally going to finish the series and give Joe a book, I was so happy! It had been years since the last Travis book and I was looking forward to revisiting the family. One of the downsides to the Travis series is that Kleypas writes them in first person POV with the heroine as the narrator. This work well for Liberty’s story and made Haven’s story even more poignant. However, for revisiting the Travis’s, not having Joe’s POV was a little disappointing.
Nevertheless, Kleypas introduces us to a whole host of secondary characters with Avery and her wedding planning business with her sister. This book delved into family dynamics from Avery and her family issues to the Travis family coping with tragedies as a unit. Avery has very clear daddy issues, her father being an unfaithful womanizer. She has learned to not trust love, despite being in the wedding planning business. Joe works to break through the shell around her heart. Even with their relationship building from a one-night stand, he is willing to take things slow. One of my favorite things about Joe is he is not the typical, womanizing-to-reformed hero. He had a wild youth but is looking for a serious relationship. Almost from the start he decides that he wants Avery and he works to convince her that a relationship between them is a good thing.
I did have a few issues with this book. Honestly, I’m biased. I went into the book thinking that this will be good but nowhere near as good as Blue-Eyed Devil. And that’s actually what I took from the book. The first person POV ended up bothering me. For most of the book it was fine. However, it bothered me during the break-up. I wanted to see Joe regret his unwillingness to have a long-distance relationship. That was really the part of the book that bothered me. To me, it seemed like Avery was forced into making a career choice based on her relationship. This wasn’t a make or break moment for the book but it certainly didn’t make it my favorite of the series.
Final note: Cutest proposal ever! Let’s just say there were puppies.
Favorite Quote:
“I needed this more than I would have believed, latched so securely against him that his body formed the necessary margin, the boundary between me and the rest of the world.
It was more intimate than sex, to have someone hold the broken pieces of you together like that.”
Rating: 3 out of 5.
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