I usually find myself seeking out Brayden when I am desperate for something good to read. So I'm not sure if I built her up in my mind before I started this book but I honestly found myself disappointed. It's the second book of the Seven Shores series but I actually preferred the first one. Don't get me wrong. It's a good read, just not the best in my opinion. And before you ask... Yes I would recommend it.

*ARC provided by publisher via NetGalley*

https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R167OJYZFCB85U/ref=pe_1572281_66412651_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2320027154

This is the second book in the Seven Shores series.  Although this is in a series, it could be read as a stand-alone book.

Autumn Primm is the owner of a coffee shop, the Cat’s Pajamas, in Venice Beach.  She takes pride in her shop and works very long hours to continue its development. As a barista, she is always striving to brew new and delicious coffee.  Now that her business is doing well, Autumn is single and longs to find a woman to share her life with and start a family.

After a very bad fire, Kate Carpenter, a firefighter, needs some time off.  She hopes that sunny California will help her to overcome the nightmares and the worry about the two children who are orphaned and now a part of the foster parent system.  What she finds there is a group of friends who welcome her to the area.  In addition, she meets the attractive and sensitive Autumn.

I really enjoy the group of friends from the Seven Shores series.  They are funny, caring and devoted to each other.  The chemistry between Autumn and Kate is high voltage.  The story is well developed and a very easy read.

I look forward to the next book in the series.  From the way the book ended, I can almost bet that Gia, the surfer, will be the next character to find love.

I rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

I was given this ARC in return for a fair and honest review.

This is the first Brayden book I didn’t binge read the day I got my hands on it.  Now that I have finished I realize I should have read it sooner.  I liked this one better than the first in the Seven Shores series.  I am not as into the Seven Shores series as I was in the Soho Loft series. If you had asked my why after book one of this series I would have said the characters.  I just didn’t enjoy this group as much.  That has now changed.  While reading Eyes Like Those, Autumn wasn’t even on my radar of favorites in the series.  After this book, she is by far my favorite. That may change.  We will see.  Brayden always write a great story, and her characters are likeable and the dialogue is always top notch, this book is no different.  If you are a Brayden fan you probably already picked this up.  If you haven’t read her books I have no idea where you have been.  Start with book one and catch up.  Another great read.  I can’t wait for the next.

I'm a huge Melissa Brayden fan, and while this wasn't my favourite book of hers, I enjoyed reading it. The two leads had amazing chemistry. The other characters were also well developed and I enjoyed seeing some familiar faces - however, Autumn's group of friends could have done with less airtime in my opinion. I also found the dialogue  unnatural and teenage-like at times, but overall the writing flowed and it was a quick, fun read. The baby storyline was different and interesting.

Melissa Brayden  does it again, Heart Like Hers is up there as one of her best.  

A lovely story between Autumn and Kate, instant attraction both good characters plus added bonus of all Autumn's friends   

MB has the knack of always writing a lovely enjoyable story, and I found with this one she is a natural comic genius.

Without giving away too much the scene between Autumn and Hadley has me laughing out loud.... excellent      

I highly recommend this as a great read and again looking forward to MB's next one.

I really love all Melissa Brayden's books. This is the second book in the Seven Shores series .Autumn owns  the Cat's Pajama's coffee shop next to the Seven Shores Apartment Complex, Kate Carpenter is a firefighter who rents an apartment in the complex trying to bring order to her life, after having suffered a traumatic event back in her hometown.Kate and Autumn meet well. Date. Both know that it’s temporary.  Both develop ‘something’.

A really lovely story that kept me invested throughout.  Brayden continues her customary strength as an author, a quality which is always appreciated.

This is my second Brayden and I highly enjoyed it. She has a way of building up the romance between her characters that make their connection be more than just sexual tension. This story is not the exception. Plus, the characters are very relatable and it is easy to lose oneself in their lives.

I never read books from this author before but I can assure you that she can write and a kickass when it comes to female empowerment when I am reading a book that has lgbt+ the first thing I look for is that the author is giving their readers the right information about the lgbt+ community since I make part of the same community I wish that the chapters were a bit shorter because it took me a long time to read the whole book. I gave this book a 4 out 5 stars.  'Netgalley ARC provided by The Publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review'

Enjoyed this one but it wasn't my favorite of Brayden's. For me, the pacing of the novel felt a little off. Still like the characters (Hadley a bit more this time around) and the chemistry between Kate and Autumn was great. Looking forward to the next one.

I think I liked this second book in the Seven Shores series more than the first thanks to the way Brayden fleshes out her two romantic leads. 

I liked Autumn Primm and her “time to take control of my life” attitude. She came across as the most grounded of the four Seven Shores friends, making life changing decisions, dealing with her annoying leech of a mother and handling the entertaining misfits she employed at The Cat’s Pajamas. ( I struggle to write that word without a y) She knows her attraction to Kate and the pursuit of anything more comes with a time limit. She knows this yet she struggles to resist the attractive firefighter. I love that kind of conflicting emotional response in a strong woman. 

Kate Carpenter, from a town you know must be dull when they name it Slumberton, needs to get away from what she considers unwarranted hero worship following a tragic fire in her hometown. She takes a short leave from her job as a firefighter and heads to Venice to put some space between herself and the well meaning locals of Slumberton. Her chance encounter with Autumn sets up the obvious chemistry between our two leading ladies. Kate’s baggage does come into play as the story unfolds but that is one spoiler I will leave for the readers to uncover. 

As we have come to expect, Brayden balances the more serious moments in her novels with humour and her usual flair for dialogue. Isabel gets a small amount of page time but Hadley steals the secondary character scenes with her joie de vivre. The friendships between the women of Seven Shores and The Cat’s Pajamas are the cement and support which helps the reader know that all will be well in the end. 

A pleasure to read

ARC received with thanks from publisher via NetGalley for review.

It's Autumn's turn, she's the owner of the Cat's Pajama's coffee shop next to the Seven Shores Apartment Complex that this series gets its name from.

Kate meanwhile rents one of the empty units at Seven Shores through AirBNB and she meets Gia, Hadley, Isabel and most importantly Autumn soon after that. They're both drawn to each other. But, Autumn has some changes that she's starting in her own life, and Kate is trying to get space away from her small town because everything there is super overwhelming since she saved a couple of kids from a burning house.

It was a very adult type of romance. I don't mean it in an exactly sex sort of way, although of course it had a good portion of that, but in the way that the book first approached the Autumn/Kate relationship. Of course, it is a romance book, so the pull becomes harder and harder for the two women to resist. And I thought that Brayden had some cool twists I didn't see coming in there too.

It was a fun book and the ending seemed like it worked perfectly, not rushed or too long.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books.

The premise for this book was so promising to me. I felt that the book was a great way to explore the more 'slice-of-life' LGBTQA+ side of fiction, but not get too far into the at times frustrating and depressing coming out stories that tend to be on the forefront of the market. It's nice to read a queer story that isn't about coming to terms with sexuality, you know? This book, thankfully did not have that. What it did have however, was a plot that I struggled to find attachment to, and characters who felt like cliches rather than real people.

My major problem with this book was the character of Autumn, which is very unfortunately because she's the lead protagonist. At first glance, she seemed fine, if somewhat awkward with dialogue (more about the writing later), but the more the book went on, the less I found myself caring about her. Probably my first issue was very early in the book, where she confided in her friends that she wanted to go about having a baby. I'm likely biased; I'm not really interested in a story about starting a family because I myself am not someone who desires children. Maybe someone who does want to be a parent would feel more of an attachment or relation to Autumn. That isn't necessarily a fault of the character, but I had no idea that this story would be dealing with someone with that goal in mind so I wasn't prepared for it and it took me out of the book quite a bit. 

Also, in the beginning of the book, Autumn is invited to the wedding of her ex-girlfriend, who is marrying the woman who lead to the breakup of their relationship through an affair. I understand finding a way to get along with your ex's, but really? Why would you stay in contact with this person, and why would they invite you to their wedding? At the wedding, we are introduced to the ex's new wife and she is an unpleasant and mean person. She makes back-handed remarks and is generally rude; I'm assuming that Autumn knew this already, so why go to the wedding of a person who isn't nice to you, even if you do get along with your ex? Send a gift or card, don't go to their wedding to be treated like garbage. I also wasn't fond of the writer making the new girlfriend mean; it's so overdone. That was a common theme in this story; cliches, and not done very well.

I enjoyed Kate more than Autumn, but I also felt that too much of the book was spent with each character thinking about each other and not enough time actually spent together. They didn't have chemistry that really felt solid or lasting to me. If this was a story about a short romance, then maybe that would have been better and it would have flowed more consistently, but to write these characters on only a handful of dates then prepared to spend the rest of their lives together, it was a bit of a stretch. That is certainly a trend and a theme in most romance novels, but this was a bit too much even for me. That was even more true for the character of Autumn's mother who was more a caricature than a person. It was like the author filled in the blanks for 'generic bad mother' and that was what came out. Very strange and off-putting.

The writing was fairly decent as well. The characters had distinct voices and motivations and overall it was a fully realized story. But the dialogue was difficult to get through at times. It felt so forced with characters going through what basically translates to information dumping by going on for paragraphs explaining something that could more easily be shown in narration. Also, more often than not, I found myself thinking, "No one talks like this!" It tried to be casual, but eloquent and flowery, and just didn't really land anywhere solidly between the two. 

It was not a bad book. I think someone who has an interest in LGBTQA+ romance should give it a try to see if it's for them. It was not for me, unfortunately, but that does not mean someone else won't like it.

Hearts Like Hers is the second book in the Seven Shores series. I have not read the first book but seeing as the main characters were different, I did not think it would matter. It is possible that characters from the first book made some appearances; although, I am not a hundred percent sure. When the novel began, it definitely felt like readers were supposed to know who all of the friends were and were henceforth never introduced. This was, of course, my fault entirely and I am not rating this book poorly because of this reason.

The story is very sweet and light-hearted, with funny antics from Autumn’s close-knit circle of friends. It is a good read if you are not after anything too serious. The romance is easy to follow and had its good moments.

The story uses the trope of instalove, which isn’t such a bad trope in my opinion, but in this case, it made me distracted. One of the girls at one point says, ‘… Unless we have a thing happening. We do, don’t we?’ after talking to her love interest for maybe a combined total of ten minutes. There was never a point where I questioned whether they were going to end up with each other because there was no room for intrigue. They got together so quickly that it made me not really care for their relationship.

The main characters in this story seemed to merge together. Their voices sounded so similar that they could have switched personalities and I wouldn’t have noticed. I did not realise that I was reading from the perspective of two characters until the second chapter. There wasn’t really much that made either of them stand out. One was a firefighter and the other was a cafe owner and that was basically the only way I could tell the difference. I think some more character development could have fixed this.

I thought the dialogue between Autumn and Kate sounded a little stilted and cheesy at times. This is fine if you are looking for a simple, cute romance. There is mystery behind something that happened to Kate, which made her character a little more interesting. Even so, her story from the past did not want to make me keep reading. Autumn was a boring character to me. I liked Kate the most out of both of them.

I had heard good things about Melissa Brayden's books, so I figured I'd give this one a shot when I saw it on Netgalley. Unfortunately, I didn't feel the romance in this book at all, even though I stayed up way too late reading it. It was utterly meh for me. It may well have been a me-issue rather than a book issue, though.

Book 2 of the Seven Shores series continues with more stories to tell surrounding a lovable group of friends living in or around a Venice Beach, CA complex. This book features Autumn discovering romance as the central theme. Autumn is my favorite character of this crew as she seems the most mature and stable of the lot with her own thriving coffee shop and brave plans to move forward in starting a family despite her single status. Things change rapidly when smokin' hot firefighter Kate moves into the complex and sparks fly between them. Their love affair is one of the hottest this author has written to date and consequently the ups and downs they face are equally intense. While Autumn is my favorite character of the group, Kate gradually became my least favorite with her immaturity in relationships and waffling with Autumn's heart, and eventually it made it difficult for me to root for Kate as we waited for to catch up to Autumn. It certainly made for an interesting juxtaposition between these two characters and provided lots of angst and tension. They couldn't be further apart in maturity when it came to their romance. Still, this book is polished and well-written with enjoyable characters set in a scenic beach town. I'm certainly looking forward to more stories from this universe of characters.

2.5 stars. I used to like Brayden a lot. Not sure what happened. Is it me? Or is it her formula that never really changes? This time around I didn't connect with any of the main characters and I had already forgotten who were the side characters besides the leading pair from last book. I've 0 memory about who Hadley is, I just know she likes Ms. Pac-man a lot, the same can be applied to all other characters besides the surfer chick who managed to stay in my memory so I didn't care for any of them and their hijinks as a result. Note that I didn't have such a problem with Brayden's Soho Loft series which I enjoyed quite a lot. 

To me it felt like they hanged around each other a couple of times (even though technically months pass in the book) and suddenly there's love out of thin air. Sure, they didn't lack sexual chemistry, they're both apparently very attractive women so of course there is chemistry but that's not enough for me. I feel too much of the book was spent in their own heads and on loosely related extrinsic factors so their relationship didn't build properly. They wen't on like three dates, then they [split up Brayden style and come together again to marry in their honeymoon phase while dropping grand n' cheesy love declarations with promises to stay together for life. I didn't feel the proposal to be justified. They didn't talk about anything of substance like how Autumn wants kids but we don't get to know what Kate thinks about that. She's just instantly supportive of what ever Autumn wants to do. That was an incredible topic for both women to bond over but nope, let's just go right to baby making and rushed marriage based on physical attraction. (hide spoiler)]

Not sure if I want to pick up the next book in the series.

'Netgalley ARC provided by The Publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review

I adore Melissa Brayden and her style and she's one of the few writers of the f/f romance genre that I will always want to read. Strawberry Summer especially was everything I ever wanted from a lesbian book, the romance, the angst, the sex scenes were of the charts. 

The Seven Shores first two books were a bit of a disappointment to me. In this book what Autumn and Kate had was sweet and tender but not passionate. The whole plot was underwhelming. Autumn wanted to become a mother but I never actually felt like she wanted it for the right reasons. Her mother felt like a bad caricature and not a real person. When Kate came back to Venice, it felt like she did it because she couldnt go with her first option anymore as the children were taken by their real mother. She even admits it to Autumn and this totally ruined their reunion for me. 

Melissa Brayden still has it and it's impossible for her to have a bad book but I really think that she shouldn't go with another series after the end of Seven Shores installments as it gets really repetitive and she has so much more potential than that. Still waiting for the next book as Gia for me is the most intriguing character of all.

I was drawn to this book by the pretty cover and the fact that it was a lesbian romance, and it was just as heartfelt and warm as I expected.

I was first surprised by the age of the characters (I'm used to reading about teens or twenty-somethings, while the protagonists in this book are in their thirties) but I found it refereshing to read about people who are older than what I'm used to, but still far from old. Honestly, it made me feel better about aging because it's so easy to think that women in their late thirties/early forties are old, when that's really not the case.

I didn't read the first book in this series, but from what I understand, each book concentrates on a different member of the same friendship group, which I really loved. (It is also done in Maria Hollis's series starting with The Melody of You and Me.) I loved these women being friends and really being there for each other, and I loved Autumn and Kate's romance.

One thing that really caught me off guard (and I think should have been in the blurb) is that having children is a major plot point for both love interests in different ways, and this is not a topic that I like to read about. I eventually got over it and ended up enjoying the positive and validating way this book deals with having children as a single woman, having children in your thirties, and adopting children. Still, a warning or a clue in the blurb may have been nice, although I might not have picked up the book if I'd known this was part of the main plot.

While I liked both Autumn and Kate, I was slightly more interested in Kate's story and I loved how it was gradually revealed through flashbacks instead of the story being told at once. I also loved that Autumn's and Kate's plans didn't always go the way the reader expected - there were failures, and yet it was clear that these failures were not the end of the world.

I admit that I found parts of this book slow and really difficult to get through, but overall I think it is a good read for people who like contemporary romances. (Do be aware that there several explicit sex scenes.)

My rating: ★★★★☆