ABOUT THE BOOK

In small towns, no one lets the facts get in the way of juicy gossip…

Terri Rayburn is a girl with a reputation. She doesn’t deserve it, but having grown up on the outskirts of Summer Hill, Virginia, she knows how small towns work. The only way to deal with vicious gossip is to ignore it. So she keeps to herself as she runs the summer resort on Lake Kissel.

When she returns home from a short trip to find a handsome stranger living in her house, she smells a rat. Someone is trying to fix her up, and she has to admit that Nate Taggert is just her type. However, Nate is engaged to the daughter of the mayor and strictly off-limits.

Nate and Terri form an unlikely friendship while he throws himself into life at the lake. As Nate starts to hear rumors about Terri he’s confused. Knowing how smart, beautiful and strong she is, he’s determined to discover the source of the gossip. Terri doesn’t want to revisit the past, but Nate won’t stop until he discovers the truth—even if the truth might be more than either of them can handle.

MY REVIEW

Jude Deveraux never lets me down. I have been reading her books for many years and every time I’m blown away by her gift of writing. Met Your Match is no exception.  It is fun, heartbreaking, sweet, and romantic in the sense of sex is not being thrown in your face all of the time. It was a book I never wanted to end. This is book 2 in the Summer Hill series but reads as a standalone.

She liked the early morning calm, the few moments she had alone before she had to… Well, start solving problems. As the daughter of the owner of a resort, it was her job to fix everything. Arguments, leaky roofs, finding things, organizing people and events. Any and all of it was her job.

Ah, life in a small town. Terri’s life has been characterized by gossip and lies. She has taken it all in stride and tried to brush it off, but it still hurts. Her life has been about work and no fun. She has worked at the lake for her dad all her life and has not had time for anything else.

Until Nate shows up–the man engaged to the mayor’s “cute, vivacious, everybody-loves-her” daughter, Stacy. Nate is everything Terri ever wanted in a man: kind, hardworking, drop-dead gorgeous, and most of all honorable to a fault. Their friendship grows while they try to deny the attraction and then Stacy comes home from her trip to Italy and reality strikes.

The idea of building a romance going from friends to lovers is the most romantic plot line for me and Terri and Nate’s relationship is just that. I love their camaraderie and ease with each other, and love the way they work together without having to explain what needs to be done. Of course, there are nasty people in this story as well. People like Della, the gossip queen of Summer Hill and let’s not forget Stacy’s parents, the mayor, and his wife, who do not hide the fact they do not like Stacy’s new fiance, Nate.

There is also a mystery in this story about Terri’s mother who supposedly ran off with another man when Terri was a baby; hence, the gossip that Terri is just like her. A great addition to the story.

Overall, as you may have guessed, I love this story. As I said, Jude does not disappoint. There is a reason why she has had 43 best-selling novels and is still going strong.  Recommend highly!

Thank you to Ms. Deveraux and NetGalley for giving me this opportunity to review this book without the expectation of a positive review.

BUY THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jude Gilliam was born September 20, 1947 in Fairdale, Kentucky. She has a large extended family and is the elder sister of four brothers. She attended Murray State University and received a degree in Art. In 1967, Jude married and took her husband’s surname of White, but four years later they divorced. For years, she worked as 5th-grade teacher.

She began writing in 1976, and published her first book, The Enchanted Land (1977) under the name Jude Deveraux. Following the publication of her first novel, she resigned her teaching position. Now, she is the author of 31 New York Times bestsellers.

Jude won readers’ hearts with the epic Velvet series, which revolves around the lives of the Montgomery family’s irresistible men. Jude’s early books are set largely in 15th- and 16th-century England; in them her fierce, impassioned protagonists find themselves in the midst of blood feuds and wars. Her heroines are equally scrappy — medieval Scarlett O’Haras who often have a low regard for the men who eventually win them over. They’re fighters, certainly, but they’re also beauties who are preoccupied with survival and family preservation.

Jude has also stepped outside her milieu, with mixed results. Her James River trilogy (River Lady, Lost Lady, and Counterfeit Lady) is set mostly in post-Revolution America; the popular, softer-edged Twin of Fire/Twin of Ice moves to 19th-century Colorado and introduces another hunky-man clan, the Taggerts.

Deveraux manages to evoke a strong and convincing atmosphere for each of her books, but her dialogue and characters are as familiar as a modern-day soap opera’s. “Historicals seem to be all I’m capable of,” Jude once said in an interview, referring to a now out-of-print attempt at contemporary fiction, 1982’s Casa Grande. “I don’t want to write family sagas or occult books, and I have no intention of again trying to ruin the contemporary market.” Still, Jude did later attempt modern-day romances, such as the lighthearted High Tide (her first murder caper), the contemporary female friendship story The Summerhouse, and the time-traveling Knight in Shining Armor. In fact, with 2002’s The Mulberry Tree, Deveraux seems to be getting more comfortable setting stories in the present, which is a good thing, since the fans she won with her historical books are eager to follow her into the future.

Jude has lived in several countries and all over the United States. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and has an additional home in the medieval city of Badolato, Italy.

Follow Ms. Deveraux on her website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.