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Book Review | About Face (Love in the Suburbs, Book 1) by @dehaggerty #romance #romcom #bookreview


Title: About Face (Love in the Suburbs, Book 1)

Author: D. E. Haggerty

Genre: Contemporary Romance, Romantic Comedy, Small Town Romance

Book Blurb:

My grandma is trying to hook me up.

To be painfully specific, my seventy-five-year-old grandmother thinks a little hanky-panky would cheer me up. Direct quote. Since I’m currently living with her, I can’t escape the endless line of grandchildren of friends who keep ‘dropping by’ for dinner. Literally, I can’t escape. I can barely manage the trek to the dining room at this point.

While Grandma’s determined to find me a husband, I’m determined to learn how to walk again so I can walk away from her matchmaking skills. Spoiler alert: She has no matchmaking skills.

But then I get a brilliant idea. I can fake date my physical therapist. Only he wants a real date. Gulp. A real date with me? Is he for real? I’m no longer the stylish girl with the glamorous job. Now, I’m a woman with a shattered leg and a scarred face.

If I’m going to learn to live with my new reality and give love a chance, my attitude needs to do an about face. Easier said than done.

My Review:

After suffering a horrific accident, Frankie leaves the big city and moves in with her grandparents to rehab. With a scar on her face and a brace on her leg, she thinks everyone will judge her. Just her luck, Frankie’s physical therapist is the sexiest man she’s ever met. To get her grandmother from setting her up on blind dates, she asks Brodie, her physical therapist, to go out with her. He says yes but what she doesn’t realize is he really wants to date her. It must be out of pity, she assumes but she’s be wrong. As one date turns to several, Frankie must take a good hard look at her life, her friends and her career. Can she turn about face and change her life for the better or will she let her scars dictate her life?

About Face is more than a romance/romantic comedy. It’s a heartfelt journey dealing with issues such as scars, self esteem, taking leaps of faith and true beauty. Frankie starts out as very shallow but the more she’s around Brodie and her new best friend, the more she develops into a caring woman. She overcomes a lot of obstacles, the biggest is her own self-image. D. E. Haggerty’s humorous banter balances the dramatic angst nicely.

Why is this a five-star book? The characters leap off the page with their own laugh-tracks. I don’t know how the author comes up with all these funny lines but it’s hysterical. Frankie’s interactions with her grandmother is worth reading again and again. The pacing of the plot is fairly fast-moving, and the ending is so sweet. The romance between Brodie and Frankie is realistic with its fair share of drama.

If you’re looking for a small-town romance with dashes of women’s fiction, pick up About Face. I loved it and can’t wait for book two.

My Rating: 5 stars

Buy it Now:

Free to read on Kindle Unlimited!

Author Biography:

I grew up reading everything I could get my grubby hands on, from my mom's Harlequin romances, to Nancy Drew, to Little Women. When I wasn't flipping pages in a library book, I was penning horrendous poems, writing songs no one should ever sing, or drafting stories which have thankfully been destroyed. College and a stint in the U.S. Army came along, robbing me of free time to write and read, although on the odd occasion I did manage to sneak a book into my rucksack between rolled up socks, MRIs, t-shirts, and cold weather gear. After surviving the army experience, I went back to school and got my law degree. I jumped ship and joined the hubby in the Netherlands before the graduation ceremony could even begin. A few years into my legal career, I was exhausted, fed up, and just plain done. I quit my job and sat down to write a manuscript, which I promptly hid in the attic before returning to the law. But practicing law really wasn’t my thing, so I quit (again!) and went off to Germany to start a B&B. Turns out running a B&B wasn’t my thing either. I polished off that manuscript languishing in the attic before following the husband to Istanbul where I decided to give the whole writer-thing a go. But ten years was too many to stay away from my adopted home. I packed up again and moved to The Hague where, in between tennis matches and failing to save the world, I’m currently working on my next book. I hope I’ll always be working on my next book.

About Face is my sixteenth novel.

Social Media Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-e-haggerty-4b49a29/

Reviewed by: Mrs. N

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