Novella Review: Keeping Her

Keeping Her (Losing It #1.5)

By: Cora Carmack

Published By: William Morrow

Publication Date: August 13, 2013

Page Count: 100

Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble

Source: ARC Kindly Provided by Publisher via Edelweiss

Audience: New Adult - Contemporary Romance

Keeping Her is a really cute novella, set to provide a little by way of after story for Bliss and Garrick, the stars of Losing It. Losing It ended with a proposal, and In Keeping Her, Garrick takes Bliss home to London to meet his family as his fiancée. This provides plenty of material to keep Bliss fretting, and gives Garrick cause to take her mind off of her worries. We should all best lucky to be distracted by Garrick!! Be warned, there is a smidge of hotness to this story.

Bliss has a number of worries, including Garrick's overbearing mother, a late period and fitting in to Garrick's world, which is a lot wealthier than he ever let on. In fact, Garrick’s family are rich, and kind of fake with it. I loved how Bliss dealt with the issues that came up, overcoming them in her unique style; a splash of self humiliation and plenty of bravery. This is the reason I love her as a character. She has the same freak outs (more or less) as anyone else would, but she powers through and faces her fears. I also love that she doesn’t let problems fester and multiply; this is something I will try and take away as a personal lesson!

 

I didn’t give this novella a five birdie rating though, because I felt that there was a lot more mileage to be had out of Garrick’s family situation. His mother was totally primed to be this awful mother in law type, and Bliss won her over much faster than I expected, considering her formidable reputation and entrance. It was great though to feel like this big worry wasn’t really necessary though; I guess I just expected Bliss to suffer a bit more before managing to slay the dragon!

 

I also felt like the ending came more quickly than I would have liked. I was surprised it ended there, as I felt like there might be another chapter or two left to go. Cora's writing is as good as ever though, and if my only issue is that I wanted more, that tells you everything that you need to know about Keeping Her! 

Summary:

Garrick Taylor and Bliss Edwards managed to find their happily-ever-after despite a rather . . . ahem . . . complicated start. By comparison, meeting the parents should be an absolute breeze, right?

But from the moment the pair lands in London, new snags just keep cropping up: a disapproving mother-in-law-to-be, more than one (mostly) minor mishap, and the realization that perhaps they aren't quite as ready for their future as they thought.

As it turns out, the only thing harder than finding love is keeping it.