Spring Fling
by Annie England Noblin
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: March 18, 2025
Reviewed by PJ
Spring is in the air and Mylie has everything she could ever want: her tackle shop is thriving and employs a third of Clay Creek, Arkansas, and she lives with her beloved Granny and little sister Cassie, who both keep her on her toes. As tourists pour into town for the annual fishing tournament, Mylie is in her element and ready to bring her all-women team to victory.After moving to Chicago, Ben never thought he would return to Clay Creek. But with both his grandfather and mother gone, he’s left to deal with their estate. His plan is simple: come in quietly, fix up his lakeside childhood home, sell it quickly, and get out. He underestimates how quickly his arrival will stir up the local gossip, and how intensely his unresolved feelings for Mylie, his childhood best friend, will resurface.
Amid the buzz of competition and the rhythm of small-town life, Mylie and Ben find themselves unable to ignore their shared history. They tentatively explore a future together, despite the impending sale of Ben’s house and Mylie’s insistence on staying put in Clay Creek. Flings are easier said than done, and Mylie and Ben will have to address their clashing lifestyles before their feelings get away from them.
PJ's Thoughts:
I'm always up for a good second-chance romance and Mylie and Ben certainly kept me on my toes as I followed them through their push and pull journey. I liked that Noblin gave us chapters both from the present and the past, allowing readers to really get to know these characters from their first meeting in sixth grade through to high school graduation when they parted. It made me feel like I understood them on a deeper level and made me more invested in their second chance ten years later.
Noblin is also very good at crafting family and community in her books and the small southern town of Clay Creek is no exception. The setting, the local idioms, and the array of characters brought the story to life. I could easily visualize the dark, starry sky, waves lapping softly at the lake dock, mud-filled gravel roads, the welcoming warmth of the local diner, the hilarity of Stanley (a soft-hearted Pittie) and Fat Tony (a mischievous "community" raccoon), and the oh-so-Southern Baptist Church ladies showing up at Ben's house with Pyrex dishes brimming with homemade specialties and photos of their single daughters/granddaughters. And then there are Mylie's irreverent granny and young teen sister, favorite characters who contributed both humor and emotional complexity to the book.
Spring Fling is a charming, humorous, heartfelt, second-chance, friends-to-lovers story that kept me happily engaged from beginning to end.
Note: If you read an ARC of Spring Fling (as I did), you may have had concerns about a reference to Mylie's sister's boyfriend at the end of the story (again, as I did). I'm happy to report that has been changed in the final, published copy of the book and is no longer an issue.
Have you read any books by Annie England Noblin?
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One person who posts a comment before 11:00 PM, March 20 will receive a print copy of Spring Fling.
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