Item: Waylaid
Rating: 5
Author: Arielle

BOOK REVIEW: Waylaid (True North #8) by Sarina Bowen

Waylaid (True North #8)
by Sarina Bowen
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
It’s a tale as old as time: the bad boy meets the good girl. He makes a daring proposition. Then the boy gets a mysterious head injury and loses a year of his life…

The first time I meet Rickie, I don’t know what to make of him. The second time we meet, he doesn’t remember the six hours we spent together. Or standing me up afterward.

I’m not the same, either. I’ve got secrets. I’ve told lies. Bad boys aren’t my type, anyway. Even the ones with troubled gray eyes.

But now we’re roommates. Cue the awkward moments in the hallway when he’s wearing only a towel and a smile. He’s determined to win me over, and his talented hands weaken my resolve.

It’s all fun and games until my past rears its ugly head and his secrets come to light, shaking our fragile connection, maybe even breaking it…

Note: this is Daphne Shipley's story. Contents include Vermonty ice cream flavors, nerdy awkwardness, tattoos, and a playboy grandpa.

Review

I knew I needed a book about Rickie from the first time we laid eyes on him in Heartland. He was such an enigma to me and I knew that if we were to get a glimpse into what him, him that I would consume it in a day (I did).

I have said this in just about every True North review to this day but every time I start these books, I remember how good it feels to be back on the Shipley farm with one of my favorite fictional families in the entire universe. Right from the get go we see Rickie almost dying bc his poor body isn’t used to farm work quite yet (lol) and we see Daphne acting quite strange. Speaking of enigma’s, I have ALSO been dying to get Daphne’s story because she has always been the Shipley that I have feel the least connected to. I think it’s because when we first met Griffin she was still younger and she was in the background and then away at school ever since.

There was a tension between these two that we eventually find out stems from a meeting and budding friendship that Rickie knows nothing about. He went through some kind of traumatic injury years ago and just straight up can’t remember about an entire year of his life. I just KNEW right then and there that there was going to be some very delicious twists and turns in this book.

Boy was I right. As certain memories and even parts of Daphne’s past at Harkness start surfacing I began to have some suspicions about not only why Rickie’s memory was like it was, but who might be involved. I was right on somethings, wrong on others. The important part was how amazingly intricate it all was and how beautifully Bowen tied it all together. I was downright obsessed with the chemistry that Daphne and Rickie had, too. It was so hot and palpable.

The cherry on top was Daphne mending fences with her family after the entire truth came out AND of course Grandpa Shipley gettin’ some. LOL Love, love, LOVED this book and I don’t want my time with this family to ever end.

Huge thanks to Tuxbury Publishing LLC and Sarina Bowen for allowing me to read an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.♥

BOOK REVIEW: Heartland (True North #7) by Sarina Bowen

Heartland (True North #7)
by Sarina Bowen
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
An emotional friends to lovers romance full of risky secrets and late-night lessons in seduction.

Dylan is my best friend, and the only person in my life who understands me. He doesn’t mind my social awkwardness or my weird history. The only glitch? He doesn’t know that I’ve been hopelessly, desperately in love with him since the first day we picked apples together in his family’s orchard.
But I know better than to confess.
Now that we’re both in college together, I’m seeing a new side of him. College Dylan drinks and has a lot of sex. None of it with me.
Until the night I foolishly ask him to tutor me in more than algebra…and he actually says yes.
But the cool morning light shows me how badly I’ve endangered our friendship. And I don’t know if anything will be the same again.

Review

If there were one fictional family that I would gladly want to be folded into, it would be the Shipley clan. From the very first time we are introduced to all of them in Bittersweet, I knew that I was going to form a life-long attachment and love for the entire family. I actually recently went and re-read that first book and I forgot how many little snippets we see of a younger Dylan that are just hilarious. He still had that larger-than life, easygoing personality (especially compared to Griff).

Since most of the other books take place when the MCs are in their mid-to late-twenties or so, I enjoyed this one being set in college. Since I’m an old woman now with almost two kids (har har, jk..kinda) I always get giddy and nostalgic thinking back to those easygoing times. This book was no different.

I was also pretty excited to learn more about Chastity. After Zach’s book when she shows up and it’s pretty evident that she has her own story to tell about how she got the hell out of there, I was eager to learn more about it and how she was going to fit in in a college setting. Other than struggling with some of the class aspects of things though, I thought she really thrived. She ate up those “normal” college experiences and craved more. Of course I loved that Dylan helped tutor her. What a sweetheart. Really though, other than him having a filthy mouth and being this super brawny hunk of man meat (lolll) he may be the sweetest Shipley out there. No, I take that back. He definitely is.

My heart broke for him on numerous occasions because of the blame he was placing on himself for his father’s death. It’s always easy to see from an outside perspective that there would have been absolutely NOTHING he could have done that day to make his father still be alive. But he still couldn’t see that and of COURSE because he’s a stubborn male he couldn’t talk about it with anyone. I was so happy when he finally was able to talk that out with his mom and brother *sobs*.

Hmmm what else? Oh, the steamy scenes? Yeah, you aren’t going to want to miss those. The whole dynamic where the girl wants the more experienced guy to “teach her” the ways of things always gets me. I mean, how can it not? Especially when Dylan is so sweet to her and cares to make things as good for her as they possibly can be ~shivers~. Highly, highly recommend, as always.

Extra Purchase Links

Kobo https://geni.us/HeartlandKobo

Nook https://geni.us/HeartlandNook

Google https://geni.us/HeartlandGoogle

About Sarina Bowen:

Bowen is the USA Today bestselling author of 30 books, including: the True North series, co-author of Him/Us and the WAGs series with Elle Kennedy, The Ivy Years series and the Brooklyn Bruisers. And more!
Are you looking for a friends-to-lovers story or maybe even a secret baby book? You can read a list of Sarina’s books broken out by trope and style.
Need to know what’s coming next ? Get all the latest news on Sarina’s website, and sign up for her newsletter so you don’t miss a book or a deal.