Review - - Otherwise Engaged

Otherwise Engaged

by Susan Mallery

Publisher: MIRA

Release Date: November 4, 2025

Reviewed by PJ

When Shannon gets engaged, her beloved mom, Cindy, is the first person she wants to tell—and the last. Cindy’s engaged, too, and has already hinted at a double wedding. The image of a synchronized bouquet toss with her mom fills Shannon with horror. She’ll keep her engagement a secret until Cindy’s I-dos are done.

Victoria has never been proper enough for her mother, Ava, so she stopped trying. She lives on her own terms and amuses herself by pushing Ava’s buttons. Ava loves but doesn’t understand her stuntwoman daughter. When a movie-set mishap brings Victoria home, Ava longs to finally connect.

Chance brings the four women together at a wedding venue, where a shocking secret comes tumbling out. Twenty-four years ago, desperate teenager Cindy chose wealthy Ava to adopt her baby—then changed her mind at the very last second. The loss rocked Ava’s world, leaving her unable to open her heart to the daughter she did adopt, Victoria. As Shannon and Victoria deal with the fallout from the decisions their mothers made, they wrestle with whether who they are is different than who they might have become.

PJ's Thoughts:

Wow, what a roller coaster of a ride! Mallery digs into all the messy, precarious, sometimes volatile emotions of mother-daughter relationships and the impact they have on her characters' lives. And, in this book, that impact is mighty. 

Imagine discovering as an adult that your entire life was supposed to be different. That's what happens to Shannon and Victoria, two women with very different upbringings and very different relationships with their mothers. For one, the revelation explains so much about why she and her mother have never connected. For the other, it threatens the close - maybe too close - bond between mother and daughter. The fallout is immense, as one would expect, and expertly revealed, one piece at a time, by Mallery.

The twists never stop coming in this story, pulling me into the lives of these characters and keeping me invested while wondering what would happen next. The relationships are complicated, the emotions complex, and the resolutions hard won. Mallery doesn't shy away from the messiness, the ramifications of mistakes made or the devastation of heartrending decisions. It all feels very authentic and relatable. 

Aside from the relationships among the women, there are also romantic relationships (marriage, secret engagement, dating) that do not go untouched in the aftermath of the revelation of those long-held secrets. It all unfolds organically with expected difficulties along the way but results in long-overdue growth, healing, and hope for stronger relationships going forward. The process isn't easy but it's ultimately rewarding. 

This story grabbed me from the beginning and held me enthralled throughout, right up until the abrupt, what-the-heck ending. I was sure I had received a corrupted file and there were missing pages but, nope. That was the end. Maybe it's the romance reader in me but it just felt unfinished. I wanted more closure for these characters. An epilogue or even a few more pages could have given me that and made this a five-star read (for me). Other readers may feel differently. My issues aside, Otherwise Engaged is still a deeply emotional, immersive, well-written book and one I highly recommend. 

Tour Review - - A Little Ray of Sunshine

A Little Ray of Sunshine

by Kristan Higgins

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: June 6, 2023

Reviewed by PJ

A kid walks into your bookstore and… Guess what? He’s your son. The one you put up for adoption eighteen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise!
 
And a huge surprise it is.
 
It’s a huge surprise to his adoptive mother, Monica, who thought she had a close relationship with Matthew, her nearly adult son. But apparently, he felt the need to secretly arrange a vacation to Cape Cod for the summer so he could meet his birth mother…without a word to either her or his dad.
 
It’s also a surprise— to say the least—to Harlow, the woman who secretly placed her baby for adoption so many years ago. She’s spent the years since then building a quiet life. She runs a bookstore with her grandfather, hangs out with her four younger siblings and is more or less happily single, though she can’t help gravitating toward Grady Byrne, her old friend from high school. He’s moved back to town, three-year-old daughter in tow, no wife in the picture. But she’s always figured her life had to be child-free, so that complicates things.
 
When Matthew walks into Harlow’s store, she faints. Monica panics. And all their assumptions—about what being a parent really means—explode. This summer will be full of more surprises as both their families are redefined…and as both women learn that for them, there’s no limit to a mother’s love.

PJ's Thoughts:

By the 8% mark of this book, I was already crying. By 30%, I had snort laughed more than once. By the last page I would have done both many more times as well as reading numerous passages out loud to my family. I'm pretty sure we had reached the point where one more "OMG, you have to hear this one!" would have seen me kicked to the curb. But that's the risk - and the fun - of a Kristan Higgins novel. 

Higgins has the gift of creating fully-dimensional, multi-layered, frequently flawed characters to whom we readers can relate, whether we've walked in their shoes or not. In this novel, there are many from whom to choose: a biological mother, an adoptive mother, assorted family members (both male and female), teens, friends, children, and a potential love interest. Many have essential roles in the journeys of the main characters, all experience some type of growth or evolution, and all of them elicited an emotional response, positive or negative, or in some cases, both. 

The storytelling in this book is spellbinding, drawing me in from the first pages and then immersing me into the lives of these characters. The chapters are told in alternating points of view, giving insight into the joys, fears, anguish, and perspective from the views of both Harlow and Monica, as well as other characters. It deepened the emotional investment that grew exponentially within me with each completed chapter. My heart ached for both Harlow and Monica, especially after reading the flashback chapters that showed the bond of love not only between each of them and Matthew, the child Harlow birthed and Monica adopted, but between the two women as well and how that bond was tested with Matthew's actions in the weeks leading up to his eighteenth birthday and beyond. 

Along with the setting, which, let's face it, is a character in itself, Higgins also brought these characters to life on the pages of her book, giving them unique qualities that helped move the story forward. No character - primary or secondary - is left behind in a Higgins book. Even if their contribution is minimal, they still receive care and thought in their creation. Grandpop was a particular favorite. I fell hard for Grady. Rosie is the kind of friend we all deserve. Matthew carried all the complex emotions of a teenage boy, amplified by his adoption situation (it's clear Higgins has personal experience with the teen male species). Even nasty cousin Cynthia had a few unexpected surprises in store. By the end of the book, they were all real to me - no longer fictional characters on paper. I knew them. I wanted the best for them. All of them. I wanted to offer hugs when needed, applaud Harlow for the decisions she made, join her trivia team, hang out with Grandpop, visit her bookstore, and celebrate how far she'd come. How far they'd all come. With a smile and a tear, I closed this book secure in the knowledge that Harlow had forged the emotional fires of her life and emerged stronger; that, finally, she had put her past behind her and was ready to move forward to a new chapter filled with happiness and sunshine. 

A Little Ray of Sunshine is an emotional experience like only Kristan Higgins can create...and I wouldn't have it any other way. It has my enthusiastic recommendation. 

Review - - Seoulmates

Seoulmates

by Jen Frederick

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: January 25, 2022

Reviewed by Hellie

 

 

When Hara Wilson lands in Seoul to find her birth mother, she doesn’t plan on falling in love with the first man she lays eyes on, but Choi Yujun is irresistible. If his broad shoulders and dimples weren’t enough, Choi Yujun is the most genuine, decent, gorgeous guy to exist. Too bad he’s also her stepbrother. 

Fate brought her to the Choi doorstep but the gift of family comes with burdens. A job in her mother’s company has perks of endless company dinners and super resentful coworkers. A new country means learning a new language which twenty-five year old Hara is finding to be a Herculean task. A forbidden love means having to choose between her birth family or Choi Yujun. 

All Hara wanted was to find a place to belong in this world—but in order to have it all, she’ll have to risk it all.

 

Hellie’s Heeds 

This is the second book of Jen Frederick’s Seoul series; and while I believe technically you could read one without the other, I believe that reading the first one will give the reader a deeper understanding of the core conflict keeping the hero and heroine apart. In the first book, which I felt was a love letter to South Korea and adopted kids everywhere, Hara is this Everywoman character you root for to get her happy ending. While in one way she does get her HEA, the romantic element, perhaps the element many of us look for in a HEA more, does not get a HEA–and even getting a happy for now ending was a bit challenging. But there was so much to unpack with her story. She was an adopted kid from South Korea whose adoptive parents are from Iowa, where she grew up as the only Korean kid for miles. While she is totally loved by her adoptive mother, Ellen, her adoptive father ends up divorcing her mom and has a “real” (read: white) child with his new wife. Hara decides to go to Korea to find and meet her biological parents, much to the distress of her mom. When Hara arrives in Seoul to meet her biological father, she learns he died two days before and ends up attending his funeral instead, etc, etc.  

This book picks up six weeks after the last book ends, where Hara has reunited with her birth mother and is given an opportunity to live in Seoul, learn more about her birth country and culture, and maybe fit in for the first time with people who look like her. Only as one always learns when she thinks life will be easier if she just lived somewhere else, she realizes, nope, she is still the Outsider. On top of it, the boy she met who made her experience of Seoul and finding her birth parents bearable is her “stepbrother” which in the Korean culture is the same as if they were true siblings, meaning any romantic relationship they may have wanted would be cultural incest and social suicide if they keep pursuing it. And they want to be together.  

I have to hand it to the author: there was conflict galore in this book. I was so happy to have a second book that would perhaps resolve the issue of the romantic couple, but this book put the heroine (and the reader) through the wringer as one wondered if Hara would ever get a happy ending, if she would ever get to be with her true love without losing her mother again or tearing apart a family. There was also the conflict of Hara trying to find her place in society and a job/career she truly enjoyed. The book starts with her working for her mother–so she is known as the nepotism hire and all the co-workers treat her poorly because she didn’t earn her position. And there was also the conflict that Hara does love her adoptive mother and does also miss aspects of her adoptive home, Iowa, which she doesn’t imagine ever feeling. So the ending where Hara resolves her romantic issues as well as her career issues also resolves her homesickness for Iowa and the things she actually enjoyed there. It was also like a love letter written back to Iowa a bit.  

The story runs the gamut of emotions, but feels authentic and immersive to Korean culture and the people who live there. If books are a way to travel to places you only dream about, I think these two books do a bang up job as a travel guide for places you should go. And I want to go. Mostly for the food described in the book–but I’m a very food oriented person. The setting and description of places is also very well done. And the love scenes are very sexy and sensual without feeling too graphic, just the right touch to connect with the characters and their romantic arc.  

Highly recommend.