TEST
Sarah Hogle’s Twice Shy is one dollop sweet romance about two wallflowers, one dollop ‘what-in-the-world-am-I-reading?’ Its heroine is so deeply entrenched in her own fantasy world at the age of thirty that I occasionally wanted to shake her, but Hogle’s talent kept me reading.
Maybell Parish lives with her head in the clouds, envisioning life as her own private “coffee shop AU” – a fantasy world where she is the center of the action and romance. In reality she works a messy job at the Around the Mountain Resort and Spa in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (the home of Dollywood!) as a housekeeper. She’s quiet and shy and has learned to satisfy herself with fantasy dreams about ‘Jack McBride’, a Costa Rican man she fell in love with via a dating app – only for her best friend Gemma to reveal she had been catfishing her.
Maybell’s life changes unexpectedly just after she comes back from wiping vomit off the front of an ice machine. Her great-aunt Violet has died, and Maybell has inherited Violet’s rambling pink mansion Falling Stars in the Smokey Mountains. With nothing better going for her, she decides to quit her job and move into the house, planning on turning it into an inn.
But Maybell has no idea that the house has fallen into such disrepair – or that a handsome man who looks shockingly like her long-distance lover is waiting there for her.
‘Jack McBride’ is actually grumpy and taciturn Wesley Koehler, the mansion’s groundskeeper and, it turns out, half-owner of the property (whose picture was stolen and used by Gemma in the catfishing incident.) He’s been living in a cabin on the property for years, his shyness keeping him from making contact regularly with others, and when he learns that he and Maybell are to split the land he is less than pleased. He is, in fact, planning on clearing out the house and turning the property into an animal sanctuary.
Maybell soon receives the details of Violet’s dying wishes, and is informed that treasure might be buried somewhere on the property. Violet also does some beyond-the-grave matchmaking, suggesting that Maybell and Wesley get to know one another. They do, gradually, but to finally claim a real boyfriend, Maybell must surface from her fantasy life for once and for all.
I will give Hogle this – Maybell is an entirely different kind of heroine from the one featured in her previous book, You Deserve Each Other. But the character’s constant inability to separate fantasy from reality and her tendency to disappear into it makes her an exasperating figure. When Wesley ultimately buys into this fantasy and decides to make it a reality for it, the reader is torn between finding it romantic and sweet and wishing for Maybell to receive a wake-up call.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t find her funny or I didn’t pity her, but good lord – she spends so much of her time dreaming and in her own head that the first half of the book had me wanting to shake her and beg her to DO something when it came to Wesley. It’s explained why she’s like this – a panic disorder and social anxiety (which the author depict well), with the additional problem of her parents being neglectful and abusive a-holes – but still.
Wesley, meanwhile – under his bluntness – is secretly shy and sweet. He’s a good hero, and sometimes his romance with Maybell actually flies. The romance and the sense that they were helping each other grow were what landed this right into mid-level territory for me.
And the romance is so nice – filled as it is with understanding and warmth, in spite of Maybell’s….Maybell-ness, I couldn’t not enjoy it.
Twice Shy earns a middling grade – not quite able to make it over the narrative mountain, it’s still sugar-sweet and charming in spots.
Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent retailer
Visit our Amazon Storefront
Grade: B-
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Subtle
Review Date: 24/04/21
Publication Date: 04/2021
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Lisa Fernandes is a writer, reviewer and recapper who lives somewhere on the East Coast. Formerly employed by Firefox.org and Next Projection, she also currently contributes to Women Write About Comics. Read her blog at http://thatbouviergirl.blogspot.com/, follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thatbouviergirl or contribute to her Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MissyvsEvilDead or her Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/missmelbouvier
Related Reviews
Interesting! On Goodreads, I rated this similarly, but for slightly different reasons. I wasn’t as exasperated with Maybell’s personality because I identified with her character. I’m in my thirties and I’m a daydreaming, romantic fantasy-prone person too. I also enjoy Hogle’s focus on working or middle class characters; it’s a refreshing change of pace from the wealthier lawyers, bakery owners, and app developers of today’s contemporary romance.
My central frustration was with the book’s inability to reconcile its sweetness with the much darker and more serious themes. Twice Shy contains cat fishing, gas lighting, extreme hoarding, grief & guilt over estrangement with a now-deceased elderly relative, narcissistic parenting, childhood abandonment, anxiety disorder, etc. and it’s covered with a layer of twee, which left me feeling a bit emotionally discombobulated by the end. I like angsty books. I like twee books. In this case, I needed those two disparate things integrated better.
Thank you for your review!
I felt like this about Katherine Center’s What You Wish For and How To Walk Away. They were so grim in parts that all the wonderful light frothy stuff seemed oddly juxtaposed. Neither worked for me at all even though I love her writing, her characters, and her sense of humor.
I loved Center’s Things You Save in a Fire. That book, like much of Kristan Higgins’ women’s fiction, manages to deal with serious issues in a way that isn’t jarring.
Oh, that’s good to know! I’ve seen those books and their distinctive covers floating around Goodreads and Romancelandia and I’ve been wondering what the deal was with them. And totally agree, there’s a way to blend “light frothy stuff” and serious issues in a way that isn’t jarring, although I definitely don’t envy writers trying to maintain that tricky balance.
See, I think I would’ve accepted Maybell’s fantasy world if the reality felt more grounded – really she has a reason to be cloud cuckoolander with her life, but as you pointed out. The twee here is the problem. You can’t have concrete rockbed and then have whimsy layered over it.
Exactly! Concrete rockbed and whimsy definitely captures the disparity here. I mean, I think it’s possible to have those two ingredients and mix them into something that’s both winsomely appealing and psychologically clear eyed, but I imagine it takes a lot of skill or experience or deftness, and Twice Shy missed that mark, in my case. But I’m still a Sarah Hogle fan and more than happy to read her next book.
Oh yeah, other authors have worked with it better. Honestly I just wanted more of both characters but that was me.
And thank you for enjoying the review!
I wanted to add – I definitely enjoyed the middle-class working world presented here!
Yay!!! I’m so glad to hear other readers are enjoying that too. And I just wanted to say: I really enjoyed your review, Lisa! It made me look at the book in a different light and I find that so valuable.