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 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.

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 didn't realise this was a series! However, it was very easy to read and follow along. I enjoyed this book, I loved the LGBT representation here and I am so happy to see it be a lesbian romance as I feel we get them the less. I loved the characters and I enjoyed reading it. You could feel the chemistry with the characters. It wasn't the best book I have ever read, but I did enjoy it anyway. I will be continuing with the series! Thank you so much for sending me the title in exchange for an honest review.

This is the second book in the Seven Shores series. I have not read the first book and did not find this a problem when reading the second instalment. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the characters, old and new, and will certainly be reading the rest of the series. A very nice lighthearted romance with some laughter, heartache and mild sex scenes to spice it up. Recommended.
I was given an advance review copy by Bold Strokes Books and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34992208-hearts-like-hers" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Hearts Like Hers (Seven Shores, #2)" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1493212883m/34992208.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34992208-hearts-like-hers">Hearts Like Hers</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4789680.Melissa_Brayden">Melissa Brayden</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2288605309">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I rec'd an ARC from NetGalley/Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.<br />Kate and Autumn star in this romance with angst and some humour. Second in a series but "stand alone" unless you need to check all the facets of various characters. Not a bad read from Ms. Brayden.<br />3 stars.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31134832-gail">View all my reviews</a>

I normally love books by this author, but this one wasn't my favorite. It wasn't bad, the story just had my mind wandering at times. The chemistry between the main characters was great, and the love story itself was sweet, but the overall plot was pretty transparent. I saw the direction it was going pretty early on, and I guess because of that, it was hard to stay focused and want to keep reading. I did finish though because the characters were likable and interesting.

Exactly what I’m become accustomed to from Ms Brayden; a well written book that is both sassy and sweet. This is a romance that warms the heart and has a group of friends that you wish were yours. The writing appears effortless, which is a very hard thing to achieve. I also like the way the lazy atmosphere of the beach permeates the story. It’s clever and precisely observed. A perfect book for the weekend.

No one does adorable like Melissa Brayden. And as for romantic and heartwarming, she is unsurpassed. ‘Hearts Like Hers’ is set in the Venice Beach area and specifically around the Seven Shores Apartment complex. Rather a lot of lesbians choose to live there and this time we find out more about coffee shop owner and all round wonderful friend Autumn. Although she has the best friends ever she is lonely and feels she has reached a point where she wants to change that. Into her life walks gorgeous firefighter Kate, a woman with troubles of her own and a need to get away from her own life in Oregon. Their story is sweet and oh so hot but they have both put up barriers. Can they get past them?
I think Autumn is my favourite character from the Seven Shores series. She is completely adorable, loving and caring and deserves to be loved by someone special. Kate is strong and capable as a firefighter but circumstances have made her doubt herself. She and Autumn have a connection that is intense and just feels right. I wanted this relationship to work.
This story made me misty eyed and happy and I realised that every Melissa Brayden book has that effect on me. I loved it!

I was given this ARC in return for an honest review.

Another great book from Melissa Brayden. I like a series of books as you always get a wee update on the previous romances and how they are getting on. This one didn’t turn out quite how I thought it would, which isn’t a bad thing. Looking forward to more from this series and from this author.

This was a fun and charming romance. I really enjoyed the character and the storyline. This author's writing is pretty witty and keeps the pages turning. I seriously found myself chuckling a couple of times. I do enjoy Melissa's writing style. I would recommend for all to read. Great read.

A romance between a firefighter full of doubts of her chosen profession and the owner of a coffee place who wants to build a family on her own. The chemistry between the two main characters is intense and the conflicts that threaten to keep them apart are interwoven with their personalities. The main characters are extremely well developed and the writing flows beautifully in the signature style of Melissa Brayden. The only downside is that all characters talk alike.
It’s the second book in the Seven Shores Series, but it’s absolutely not necessary to read the first one. The secondary characters are the same and the romance of the first one is mentioned, but it’s easy to get into the setting and the characters.