Mornings on Main – Jodi Thomas – Book Review

Mornings on Main takes us to the small town of Laurel Springs and gives us three super sweet love stories for the price of one.

MORNINGS ON MAIN by Jodi Thomas

Publication Date: April 10, 2018
Publisher:  Harlequin Books
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Purchase: Amazon 
Length: 336 pages
Source: Publisher
Story Rating: 4/ 5
Romance Rating: 3/5

Description:

When Jillian James lands in the small town Texas community of Laurel Springs, she’s definitely not planning to stay–except to find a few clues about the father who abandoned her and destroyed her faith in family.Connor Larady is a single dad, and the only one caring for his grandmother, Eugenia, who has Alzheimer’s. And now he has to close Eugenia’s quilt shop. When Connor meets down-on-her-luck Jillian, he’s out of options. Can he trust the newcomer to do right by his grandmother’s legacy? Jillian is done with relationships. But as she grows closer to Connor and Eugenia, she must consider giving up her nomadic life for a future with those who need her.An inspiring family saga that asks us to consider what love and chosen family really mean.

Review:

I’m sure it will not come as a surprise to anyone when I say this isn’t the sort of cover I’m usually drawn to. It’s beautiful if that were an actual storefront I’d go in but I like to see a bit of skin on my book covers. With that said, this was a lose-lose situation. The book wasn’t sexy, so a sexy cover would have just annoyed me. The cover’s nice enough, and it fits with the story.

I adore well-written stories about small towns. One hallmark of a well-written small town story is when you get to know the entire community, not just the main characters. This author did an amazing job of not only introducing me to the key players in the community but putting me right in the middle of the action.

More often than not, I complain when authors try to introduce me to a dozen or so people, how am I supposed to keep them all straight? This time, however, I can’t complain at all. The characters were introduced and layered and developed in such a way I wasn’t overwhelmed. It was beautiful to read.

During this book, I was introduced to three couples at various stages of their lives. We have Sunnie and Reese, who are teenagers and just figuring out the whole dating thing. Conner and Jillian who are adults and trying to figure out how to make a relationship work when they know it has an expiry date. Then we meet Joe and Jeanie who have been best friends for pretty much their entire 80-some years of life. Their relationship isn’t romantic in the slightest, Jeanie was married to Joe’s best friend before he passed away, but it’s obvious how much they care about each other.

Now, Ms. Thomas, you have a unique way of describing the men in this book.

Let’s look at Conner first:

he was starting to look like the mug shots on the Dallas nightly news. Hair too long, this was the third day he’d worn the same old wrinkled shirt, and he hadn’t bothered to remove the raincoat his gram said only a vampire would wear.

And Reese:

He was skinny, ate everything in sight, had hair the color of the Red River, and never said the right thing at the right time… his face had more scabs than pimples.

… At least he has all his teeth.

I all for being realistic, but I think we need to have a very serious talk about what I expect from my book boyfriends. I don’t ask for much: he pretty much just needs to look like he stepped right out of a Calvin Kline underwear advertisement, have an uncanny way of always knowing what I need to hear… nothing unreasonable there.

My hubby, on the other hand, is your biggest fan. He thinks it’s about time men were realistically represented in romance novels. So I guess I’ll be getting every book you’ve ever written for Christmas.

Anyway, I only have two real complaints about this book. The first is cell phones. I loved how you gave the old ladies cell phones, that was adorable. But, I’m a bit confused why Jillian and Conner never communicated that way.There were so many times where they could have sent each other sweet or even sexy text messages instead of being miserable thinking about each other.

My other complaint about the book is the ending. I wanted more, obviously, but I really wanted to see Conner and Jillian give their relationship an honest shot. I would love to know how different things are between them now that they aren’t counting down the minutes until it ends.

Overall, Mornings on Main was a beautiful, engaging, and well-written story. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to take a break from their reality and get lost in the drama of a small town for a few hours.

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