This book was amazing! I could not put down! New author to me so I am now looking forward to more books by this author!

I loved this edition in the series just as much as book 1! The community is adorable and I loved the medical aspect of the story. I also loved Jake's hideaway.

I struggled a little with the first book in this series, it was missing something for me and I felt like it was a bit too long. I wanted to give the next book in the series a fair chance too and I’m glad I did because I did end up enjoying this one more!

I loved that Nora was brand new to town and had no real connection to anyone and I enjoyed seeing her make new friends, find some romance and just find herself a home. Jake’s grief was portrayed so honestly and tenderly and he really tugged on my heartstrings. Their relationship felt really mature and deep right from the start and I love that it was rooted in friendship. Seeing Jake open his heart to Nora was so sweet and totally melted my heart. A sweet romance with lots of depth. 🥰

Paradise Cove did not disappoint!!! This book has received so many rave reviews, and now I see why!!! I loved loved loved Jake. I mean a man crying that looks like him? Sign me up! Loved gooey cinnamon roll Jake. And Dr. Nora was the perfect foil to him. I fell in love with them together and this community. And his beach house. Such a good book!

Paradise Cove is Holiday’s second Matchmaker Bay romance, after Mermaid Inn, and, on some level, it may be even better, its theme more complex, though its romance, weaker. As far as tropish goodness is concerned, Holiday moves from reunited-high-school-sweethearts to friends-with-benefits and what makes for Paradise Cove‘s strength, the “friendship” component, weakens the romance. Even the protagonists agree, early on, and maintain the agreement that romance doesn’t enter their relationship. This, for me, skirts women’s fic territory and that’s one country I don’t enjoy visiting. Nevertheless, there is much to love about Paradise Cove. The synopsis-blurb doesn’t give much of the novel’s essence, but it’s a good starting point to learn about Jake Ramsey and Dr. Nora Walsh:

Dr. Nora Walsh has just been dumped in spectacular fashion, making it the perfect time for a major life change. She figures taking over the medical practice in tiny Matchmaker Bay for a couple of years will help her get over her broken heart, and then she can head back to the big city. But when the first man she sees looks like a superhero god, she wonders if maybe there’s something to small-town living after all.

Jake Ramsey also has a broken heart — one he never expects to heal. He doesn’t need people anyway and is content hiding out in his secluded cottage on the beach. But after helping Nora with a medical emergency, he finds himself opening up to the witty, warmhearted doctor. Soon the local matchmakers are working overtime to pair them off, and Jake begins to wonder if his campaign to get Nora to stay is for the town or because he can’t bear the thought of her leaving.

This romance novel’s uniqueness lies in the source of Jake’s “broken heart”; while Nora’s is your standard a-hole, cheating, selfish BF, fellow-doctor, Rufus (I wonder if this is a nod to Rufus Sewell’s a-hole character in The Holiday?), Jake’s is viscerally difficult to read about, his baby son’s death, of the flu, at nine months. (Let this also serve as a CW.)

Despite Jake’s emotionally heavy backstory, Paradise Cove is not without humour, to witness, its opening-scene meet-cute. Nora, pixie-doctor of the silver-y hair and grey eyes walks into Moonflower Bay’s Curl Up and Dye for a root touch-up and encounters a “man-god” with long hair and green eyes, unbearably lookish, “like Jason Momoa’s paler twin … Aquaman … some kind of sea god or something? They were on a Great Lake.” Holiday has a great way with turns of phrase and I loved how she described the moment when one character falls in love with another, even though it takes them pages and pages to consciously admit it: “He transferred his attention from his reflection to Nora, and as their eyes met in the mirror, there was a record scratch in Nora’s brain. It was like there was the normal, unremarkable, white-noise soundtrack of life unspooling as it always did, and then it just stopped.” Herein lies Holiday’s greatest strength as a romance writer: even with an emotionally low-key romance, and emotionally high-stakes for the individual hero and heroine, especially the hero in this case, Holiday surprises and delights by virtue of her prose.

Jake and Nora hit it off right away and it’s easy to see why: Holiday has created a hero, once he deals with his grief and guilt, who is made to be a husband and father. He’s a care-taker, is our Jake. Nora, in turn, is a healer: she knows what to say and what to do to take care of others. But there’s nothing maudlin about the characters. There couldn’t be, given Jake’s backstory, baby Jude’s loss is enough to send any reader into ugly-cry mode. It certainly did me. I loved Jake and I loved Nora and I loved them together. They talked and became best friends over the narrative course, truly, by temperament, emotional resonance, and compatibility. And it’s obvious to everyone, small-town denizens, Jake’s buddies, romance heroes past and to come, town chief of police Sawyer and bar-owner Law, and their heroine counterparts, Eve and Maya respectively, who become Nora’s friends. Oh, there is drama and an emotional betrayal scene, made up for by a magnificent proposal scene, but overall, Nora and Jake LIKE each other and fall in love because they like each other. It works.

What doesn’t work? In and of itself, Paradise Cove is lovely and any contemporary romance reader, once the CW is taken into account, would enjoy it. Rather, it’s a hunch, on my part, that Holiday is a much edgier romance writer than the small-town feel-good setting allows her to be. If she, like some other faves, Sarah Morgan, Molly O’Keefe, and now Maisey Yates, is heading into WF, then, we’d have to add my broken heart to Nora’s and Jake’s. 😉 But I hope not. With Miss Austen, we say Paradise Cove offers “real comfort,” Emma.

Jenny Holiday’s Paradise Cove is published by Forever. It was released in July 2020 and may be found at your preferred vendor. I received an e-galley, from Forever, via Netgalley.

I enjoyed this small town vacation report romance, though it was not the story I expected it to be. There were heavy topics like grief and loss of a child tackled in the story. All were handled well, giving both protagonists time to heal and grow. I appreciated the way each character was tasked with taking responsibility for their own issues, while each is still treated with sympathy. The small town cast was fun and brought some levity to the interactions. Touching and enjoyable.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book. My reviews can be read on my GoodReads account here: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1335387-kelly

Enjoyed this book! A great meet cute. Adorable charming small town. Just a great read all around. Everything you want in a rom-com!

This is a perfect steamy summer read with more depth than your average romance. I loved the heroine in this book -- Nora is a strong character who's good at her job and is finding herself in this new town. Of course, she keeps bumping into the hero, Jake, and there are several charming side characters that want to move their relationship along. I really liked that the two main characters were grown-up adults struggling with all sorts of real issues. I highly recommend!

A sweet, swoony, steamy small-town romance. Jenny Holiday has fast become an auto read author for me. I love her lovable characters, her gorgeous settings, her witty dialogue, and all the charm. Dr. Nora has left the big city relocated to the small town of Paradise Cove for a little change of pace. Jake is a long time resident of Paradise Cove an introverted recklus with a tragic past. This was an engaging and emotional friends to lovers romance. Both Nora and Jake were likable characters with some baggage. The story is for the most part a feel good romance, but the story also deals with grief. The book really gives you all the feels - you will cry, you will smile, you will laugh, you will swoon. cannot wait for the next book in this charming series.

*** Big thank you to Forever for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

I really loved Mermaid Inn, and I thought this was just as cute. It was a quick listen, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series! (I actually have the ARC for Sandcastle Beach from @NetGalley to read during Christmas Break!)

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

With the synopsis this book had everything I wanted in a book. I didn’t know enough about this series going into it so it felt like an onslaught of characters from the get-go, which is my fault. It felt like I was missing info while also being overwhelmed which made me lose interest. I’d love to give this one another shot if I go back and read book 1. Rating is based on the portion of the book that I was able to complete.

This is the second book in the Matchmaker Bay series. This book can be read as a standalone, but would be better enjoyed as part of the series. This was a small town romance with a friends to lovers trope. This book was exactly what I didn't know that I needed! This book had friendships, love, and drama. All things that make a romance book great! This was such a steamy read, and the characters had great chemistry. If you're looking for a quick and easy romance to read, I recommend this one!

In Jenny Holiday's Paradise Cove, the 2nd installment in the Matchmaker Bay contemporary romance series, this sweet tale tells about how two people who weren't looking for love found each other at the right place. For Dr. Nora Walsh, she needed to escape from an abrupt broken relationship with her boyfriend and moved from Toronto to a sleepy little coastal town named Moonflower Bay. She had set forth a plan to stay there for two years to become the new doctor at the local clinic. Everyone in that small town meddles and plans to match her up with someone. But when she met Jake Ramsey at the local hair salon, a handyman who loved to build and repair things, who wasn't interested in a relationship, and mourned the loss of his newborn son Jude who died a few years ago. But if there wasn't something in the water, when Nora and Jake got together as friends, something continued to build from there into an intimate friends-with-benefits relationship. They were there for each other's sorrows and life's obstacles and were perfectly fit and made for each other. During time, when Nora finds out she's pregnant with Jake's baby, it changed everything when he pushed her away. It was now up to Jake to put the past behind him and set things right to have a future with Nora and their unborn child in a place aptly titled Paradise Cove.

I love Jenny Holiday's books, and Paradise Cove was no exception. The second in her "Matchmaker Bay" series, Paradise Cove tells the story of Dr. Nora Walsh, a doctor who's just been dumped, who comes to Matchmaker Bay to heal her broken heart (and also take over their medical practice). She quickly runs into Jake Ramsey, who helps her with a medical emergency, and sparks fly from there!

I loved this story and can't wait for the next book in the series. Jenny is the queen of banter and this was the perfect friends to lovers read to take with you to the beach!

Oh, hello, one of my favorite contemporary romances of 2020! PARADISE COVE snuck up on me. I wasn’t prepared to totally invest in this adorable coastal Canadian small town and its quirky group of friends, but it happened! Our heroine is new to town and just coming off a bad breakup, starting over as the new doctor. The hero is Jason Mamoa-like, monosyllabic builder who is good with his hands. Seems simple, right? Guy meets girl, they’re attracted, they date, the end. Nope. Jenny Holiday takes you on an emotional journey with Nora and Jake as they work through life expectations, a mountain of grief, and moving on so you can move forward.

My favorite part of this whole book was the genuine friendship between Nora and Jake. Have you ever met someone and just clicked with that person? That’s what happens here. Their surface friendship is easy, and their relationship develops over a long period of time (okay, long in romance novel land). The easy banter between them and inside jokes are SO CUTE. Then when they get deep… it’s just beautiful! So much self-discovery and healing. Jake tells Nora that she “asks the right questions,” and it’s so quietly romantic! I’m literally tearing up writing about their connection!

Yes, I read this series out of order. No, I’m not sorry. The book stands alone so well. And Jake and Nora have my whole heart. Will I go back for Holiday’s entire backlist? Absolutely! Also, I need more short-haired heroines with long-haired heroes. It was adorable – I need it to be a thing.

I’ll admit it, I am late to the Jenny Holiday game! I know she has legions of fans, and now I totally, totally get it! I am one of you! PARADISE COVE was my first Holiday book, but it absolutely won’t be my last! In my defense, no one told me how delightfully refreshing her love scenes are and how much I would connect to her characters. That would have been a game-changer a long time ago! (Okay, maybe lots of people told me)

Overall, you can’t go wrong picking up this book. As a warning, this book deals with grief and loss of a child, so be aware and gentle with yourself if you decide to read.

**I received a free copy of this book in order to provide an honest review**

Matchmaker Bay is just the cutest series! Can we get it on Netflix please?

In Paradise Cove, Nora is the new doctor (from a big city to a small town). She meets Jake, who seems really stoic at first...can Nora get him to open up? Can they both heal their past hurts?

Jenny Holiday has a really fun writing style, and I'll definitely be back for more! The story is so sweet and cute. I love the small town feel, but with a couple that's dealing with heavier emotions. And, of course, so much swooning!

Paradise Cove by Jenny Holiday is the 2nd book in the Matchmaker Bay series and a delightful story. After Dr. Nora Walsh was dumped, she is ready for a big change in her life. Nora agrees to take over the small medical practice in Matchmaker Bay for a couple of years, and let her heart heal. Jake Ramsey is also in Matchmaker Bay, healing his broken heart too. This book was easy to read and perfect for an escape from the weather or the pandemic. I will be reading more books by this author, I highly recommend this book if you enjoy romances.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

3.5 stars
This was my first book by the author and the premise and characters are so well done that it made me wanting to look up the places and maybe dream to visit something similar someday.
Both Nora and Jake were heartbroken and trying to made amends with their life and maybe dreaming at a better future where love can be the main focus.
The word build is has so many feelings and angsty moments and it's not a light beach read at all but one with serious topics that life can throw in the path of anyone.
I personally avoid or plainly said hate stories with accidental pregnancy because that makes the happily ever after based only on the situation created , no matter how much the author will try to convince me that's not the case, i just can't get over it unfortunately.
It's a great romance overall that many will love but not a favorite for me.

I really loved this book. I am undeniably a Holiday fan girl though. I love how Holiday gave us a small town that was relatable and filled with characters that were not over the top perfect. Nora and Jake were perfectly matched and I was very invested in their HEA. I absolutely adore grief books and I LOVE that Holiday used factual and frank terms regarding the loss of Jude. He died, he didn't "pass away" or any other flowery language that is at times used to soften death.
Jake is a fixer and I loved it. I loved that Nora was in denial about staying in Matchmaker Bay forever.

One quibble, Jake has his first sexual encounter when he is a teen and the woman is ad adult. This is a little weird that it was glossed over.

Overall a very enjoyable read and I am looking forward to the next book in this series.