e-ALC, 04:43:02
Narrated by: Gail Shalan
Release Date: February 3, 2026
Published by: Books on Tape
Read from: February 20-22, 2026
Clover Lake, #2
Source: PRH Audio (I received this ALC free from the publisher and their app. This did nothing to influence my review!)
Content Warning: Sexual Content, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Homophobia, Gaslighting, Drug Use, Death of a Parent, Lesbophobia
For Readers Interested In: 2sLGBTQ, Adult, Audio, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary, Own Voices, Realistic Fiction, Religious Diversity (Religious Bigotry)A summer job at a lake-town resort brings together two women with an unlikely connection in this new contemporary romance by USA Today bestselling author Ashley Herring Blake.
April Evans’ life is in shambles. She’s had to close her tattoo shop in Clover Lake and she’s subletting her house just to make rent. And her love life? Nonexistent ever since Elena, her ex-fiancée, left her for a younger woman three years ago. When she is asked to teach a summer art class at the town’s new resort called Cloverwild, April jumps at the opportunity, especially since the job comes with boarding. She’s sure that this is the silver lining she needs . . . until she meets her Daphne Love, the woman who stole her ex-fiancée. And even worse, it’s clear Daphne has no idea who April is.
Daphne Love is cursed in, well, love. She thought she’d found the unconditional love she craved in her girlfriend, Elena, but now she’s single again and utterly brokenhearted. When her friend hooks her up with a summer gig as an art instructor at a swanky resort in New Hampshire, Daphne feels optimistic for once. If only she had a roommate and coworker who didn’t seem to hate her on sight.
Their already-tense relationship gets even shakier when April and Daphne find themselves competing for a rare opportunity to showcase their art in a London museum. But slowly, barriers begin to fall, and an inexplicable allure keeps drawing them closer, leaving them to wonder if the perfect picture they’re looking for can only be painted with each other.
*MY THOUGHTS*
I’m normally an Ashley Herring Blake stan! But this series is not doing it for me. In the last book I didn’t like Dylan and I loved Ramona, but in this one, I don’t think I liked either one of them. The first book was a joy to get through for the most part, but this one was a journey.
Ok so this one…. Yeah I did NOT like April. She was so selfish. She wanted everyone to take care know what was wrong with her without her saying and she always wanted to talk about everything else without talking about herself. It was annoying lol Nothing ever gets fixed that way and she knew it. And Daphne didn’t deserve that. She had enough problems of her own. I was glad she took the time to find herself before they got together, but I didn’t like WHEN she did it. It was finally their time and she just said, nah. It was so weird.
I also thought this was a little boring? Why didn’t we have more time with them in their classes? Something? It was the same thing over and over with them fighting and making up and doing weird stuff that didn’t even seem to fit in the story. Idk it just didn’t make sense that they spent zero time in their classroom when they were there the entire summer. It just didn’t make sense to me. This is honestly what happened in the last book too. They were hardly on set and it made it a little boring in that one too.
I think I’m most disappointed because I was so excited for this story. I wanted hers, the Lady Whistledown person, and the sister, and now I also want the new friends’ stories…. But I’m scared it’s going to be like this again. The next story is for who I wanted, but I need to think long and hard on whether or not I’m going to read it.
Overall, I give this
