I am so sad that this book wasn't a favourite for me. I think I have officially decided that 'home reno' plot line books really don't work for me, no matter what else happens in the story. Maybe I've lived through way too many home renos in my life to properly enjoy it, but every single book I've read with that plot line has been a flop or DNF for me.

The Beach Trap was cute, and very sweet, with a lot of really important messages and character growth, but it feel SUPER flat. One of the main characters was absolutely insufferable and I understand she was like that to show growth etc etc - but she was just plain AWFUL. I think I'm over the 'influencer' characters too because there's just too many of them lately. I did thoroughly enjoy the 2 male main characters, I felt like they both added some depth to the book and the characters but that's about it. I truly seem to be in the huge minority that didn't LOVE this book, so maybe don't take my word for it.

An enjoyable beach read about two women who realize what family means. Kat and Blake are at the same sleep-away camp and quickly become best friends. That is until they both realize they have the same father, officially Kat’s while Blake’s is the result of a long term affair. After fifteen years apart, they are brought together by their father’s will, leaving them 1/2 shares in a dilapidated beach house in Florida. The story develops as their relationship does, and as they both become involved on romantic interests. Recommended as you sit on a beach for vacation. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

DNF
I tried to get into the book. I really did . But i just couldn't finish it. I am gonna blame it on my reading slump.

Thanks for the gifted copy @berkleybooks!

Another cute summer read! I’ve been friends with @bradeighgodfrey on booksta for a long time so when she partnered with Alison Hammer to write a book, I knew I had to pick it up! The premise is so intriguing and made for a quick, fun read.

While the book largely focuses on the relationship between Kat & Blake, and rightfully so as they’re the main characters, I adored the following along with their respective romantic relationships and their relationships with their families just as much. Both of their men were ~dreamy~. There was a lot of depth and intrigue to the characters and I quickly became invested.

Honestly, I enjoyed following along with the house reno process just as much as the other storylines. Getting to remodel and decorate a beach house?! Goals.

Check this one out if you’re in the mood for a summer read filled with lots of family drama!

The Beach Trap is a totally fun and engaging read and I love that it introduced me to a new writing duo! I read this book on our June family vacation and it was the perfect beach read. It was easy but also not total fluff, and I loved the inclusion of family dynamics and sisterhood and just a little bit of romance. It was lightheaded but also had enough substance to keep me engaged, the perfect summer read in my opinion!

I look forward to seeing what these authors come up with next! Thank you to Berkley for my gifted copy to read and review!

This was one of the easiest books to jump into. I was hooked immediately from the prologue alone.
The writing was excellent and I enjoyed pretty much all of the characters (most of the time 😝).

Kat and Blake meet at Camp Chickawah when they're in middle school and have an instant connection. But when a family tragedy reveals that the two are actually half sisters, their lives are turned upside down. Fast-forward 15 years, when their father suddenly dies, the pair discover he left them both joint inheritance of the family beach house in Florida. Begrudgingly, Kat and Blake join forces to renovate the house, which has fallen into disrepair.

The Beach Trap gave me definite HGTV meets the Parent Trap vibes. It is such a fun premise and I enjoyed the two main characters. Both Kat and Blake are sifting through their own stuff, which added layers to the plot. Not only did I enjoy the sisters sifting through their complicated relationship, but I also loved the added layer of romance for both of the sisters.

I loved how the themes of rich vs. poor and the chosen sister vs. the one abandoned were woven out throughout the book. Not only did it create conflict between the sisters, but it also played heavily into their personal growth arcs, which I appreciated. I will say there was a lot of the miscommunication trope toward the end of the book, which I don't necessarily love, but the rest of the book was so well done that I chose to overlook this.

Aww, I love this cover, title, and what’s inside, too.

Kat and Blake become fast friends one summer at camp. They don’t realize that they are connected and are actually half sisters, sharing the same dad. Once that is revealed, their friendship is shattered.

Several years later, their father passes away, and he leaves his daughters a fixer upper beach house with good bones and a great location in Destin, Florida. Through their work renovating the house, the relationship is revived, but not without some drama along the way.

Smoothly written and filled with heart, The Beach Trap is just the kind of easy reading I needed this summer. Bonus, since there are two sisters, there are two romances when each sister finds love.

I received a gifted copy.

This ARC was offered in exchange of an honest and impartial review:
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4,5*
Pros: Flawed and complex relationship between sisters. Complicated and hurtful family relationships. Bellywarming and steaming romance. Fun focus in home renovation, with a summer vibe. Talks about overcoming grief, getting to terms with old wounds and past trauma.
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Cons: Some superficial and immature scenes and reactions.

The hurts you feel at a young age follow you into adulthood. That is the beginning premise of this book. Blake and Kat, once best friends, are both betrayed and it keeps them apart for fifteen years. The Beach Trap gives you a close view of each girl/woman and their ensuing growth. Yes, it’s a chick book but Ali Brady did a great job and I recommend this book.

I really enjoyed this story and I loved the sisters. Their relationship definitely reminds me of mine and my half sisters.
I think this book was incredibly written and I love the build up that the authors created. I think this book reminds me of like the Money Pit / the Parent Trap / and a really good episode of This Old House.
Take this one on your road trip or to the beach and enjoy!

Big thanks go to @letstalkbookspromo @berkleypub @netgalley and @berittalksbooks for the eARC for review.

The Beach Trap centers around two half-sister’s lives crashing together when their father dies and gifts them each half of the beach house.

Kat is an influencer and her sister is a nanny. They come from different worlds and basically are each other’s secret.

So I had a little trouble connecting with Kat, she talked about a lot of stats and such for being an instagram influencer and it made it distracting for me. I find this happens a lot for me, while I loved Henry, a longtime friend of hers. He was just adorably kind!

Her sister, Blake, I could relate to more and I felt so bad for her and how Kat started treating her! I love how independent she was, resourceful, and didn’t let her personal baggage get in her way. I also really enjoyed her relationship with Noah, he was also another favorite character.

I’m so glad that I have gotten to know Bradeigh @bradeighgodfrey through the Instagram community, and I think it’s so cool that she’s now a published author! Thanks so much @berkleypub & @alibradybooks for my #gifted copy!

A delightful book about coming of age, forgiveness, and love. When two half sisters are thrown together after not seeing/talking for a decade, all chaos ensues. It is sweet and charming. I loved watching the love blossom between Blake and Noah. Honestly, Kat annoyed me right up until the end. She didn't even attempt to listen, even at 12 when Blake was a desperate child that just wanted love. At the very end, I liked that she got her HEA, but she should have been nicer. Yes, she lost her dad. Yes she had to keep a secret that changed her whole entire life. But Blake literally had her father turn her back on her, figuratively and literally.

But the growth and forgiveness throughout the book was heartwarming. From the get-go, Blake was willing to listen and learn. When Noah had kept a secret and she found out, she let him talk. She listened. She is the kind of person we should all strive to be.

The book was great. I blasted through it and was so satisfied with how it ended!

Review will be posted on 7/20/22
As young girls, Kat Steiner and Blake O'Neill both spent their summers at Camp Chickawah and were good friends. That is until they realized that they share the same father. Yes, unbelievably so, but true without a doubt. Fast forward many years later and their father has died. He left both women a beach house in gorgeous Destin, Florida. This is a dream, right? Wrong. The house is in horrific condition and needs major renovations before they even consider selling it for top dollar. How can Kat and Blake work together to renovate this house when they haven't spoken to each other in years? Also, do they both want to sell? Because one can't sell without the other's permission. Cue the drama both renovation wise and emotionally. Fans of The Parent Trap will enjoy the similarities to this novel, but ultimately, The Beach Trap by Ali Brady fell flat.

Each chapter alternates the point of view between Kat and Blake in The Beach Trap. I enjoyed the flashbacks to camp and appreciated it as well as I needed to fully understand how these former best friends could have ended up enemies. The flashbacks explain it all. Once we are in present day though, that's when things went off track for me, specifically looking at Kat's chapters. Kat is a fashion influencer and I found her chapters to be mind numbing. She was insufferable. Truly, I didn't care what happened to her or what she wanted out of the beach house. On the other hand, I liked Blake and my heart went out to her as she is the one who grew up without a relationship with her father and is now dealing with this sticky situation. Also, both women have a chance for love this summer, which added to the beach-read feel of this story along with the beautiful setting of Florida. I mean who doesn't love Destin?

I also liked some of the home renovation descriptions of the house and the similarities to The Parent Trap (always one of my favorite childhood movies!), but that's where my enjoyment ended in The Beach Trap. The romances for both women were a bit too perfect, especially that overly saccharine ending. Perhaps I am too jaded. Don't get me wrong, I love a happy ending, but this seemed over the top and just not realistic.

Essentially, The Beach Trap was a miss for me. There are so many other great beach reads out there this summer to pick up. I'd say skip this one unless you are curious about the nod to The Parent Trap and you love a good sisters having a second chance story.

So, what do you think? Have you read The Beach Trap? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

A beautiful sister story with two charming romances as well! I loved it!!!! The perfect women's fiction/romance crossover.

Blake and Kat meet when they are 12 years-old at summer camp and become instant best friends. That friendship is shattered when they discover that Kat’s dad is also Blake’s dad, who stopped showing up years ago when her mother died. 15 years later, when their father died, they each inherit half of the beach house that has been in his family for generations. They must figure out how to coexist in order to whip the dilapidated beach house back into shape.

Ali Brady does a wonderful job telling this story from both Kat and Blake’s point of view as they work through the past betrayal they both feel and come to terms with each other. I loved the way both women dealt with their grief and the truth that they had avoided for so long. The chemistry between Kat and Blake and their respective love interests, and the further tangling that this creates, brings this story to another level.

A must read for fans of Emily Henry and Tessa Bailey!

2.5 stars

The Beach Trap follows estranged sisters, Kat and Blake, who inherit a beach house in Florida after their father passes away. Kat has strong emotional ties to the beach house, and Blake wants to fix it up to sell to financially take care of her grandfather, and move on with her life. Agreeing that Blake will fix up the beach house through the summer, and Kat will get funds to buy Blake out, the two spend the summer navigating their complicated feelings about their father, one another, and falling in love.
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This was a sweet sentimental story about estranged family coming together. but I thought I would like this a lot more than I did going in. I really liked the message and there were some endearing moments between Kat and Blake, but the pacing was inconsistent and rushed, and the writing was pretty stark and surface level, reading more like it was instructional than storytelling, and the development of the romance for both storylines felt hurried and underdeveloped.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for the arc!

Blake and Kat are two best friends who find out they are half sisters. When their father passes away, he leaves them his beach house. They decide to fix it up over the summer so they can sell- obvious mayhem ensues.

Overall, I genuinely enjoyed reading The Beach Trap. Though two authors wrote the story, the story reads seamlessly. I liked the use of dual narration, which made perfect sense with how the two characters are separated for most of their lives and the majority of the summer.

Where I struggled a bit, is with Kat. She is just so unlikeable. I would force myself to read her sections of the story at times. Blake is such a sympathetic character and Kat continually is downright awful to her.

The men are both wonderful and watching how the romance blossomed between both couples was really sweet. All the characters are layered and felt authentic!

By the end of the story I had tears and was so happy how everything was resolved by *PHEW* it took me a hot minute to get there! I think this author combo is one to watch and I can’t wait to read whatever they put out next.

Terrific beach read debut!🌴👒

"Beach Trap" brings two very different half-sisters, Blake and Kat, together after their father left them with a dilapidated beach house in Destin, Florida. Blake desperately wants to sell the place for her granddad's eldercare expenses while Kat wants to keep the house for childhood memories. There's a lot of tension from the inheritance and also from their dad's doing in the past.

I thoroughly enjoyed the sisterhood story with some family drama. There's a double romance with medium steam. I find all characters including secondary ones very likable. Although I detect some 🧀 it was very mild. Overall a very delightful read! What a great collaboration for the authors' first novel. If anything, I wish I had read this sooner for July 4th, you'll know what I mean when you read it.🎆🌟

I'm lucky enough to get a DRC from Berkley Books via Netgalley and borrowed an audiobook from my library. The audio read by Brittany Pressley and Imani Jade Powers was wonderful and I couldn't stop listening!

Summer Reading ☀️

Genre: Fiction
Trope: Romance, Chick-Lit
Format: 📖
Pub Date: 6.14.2022
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆.5

"The point of life is to be alive in the world, to feel every emotion, even the messy and painful ones. To challenge yourself, to take risks, to find beauty in the imperfections and be grateful for the opportunity to experience it all."

The Beach Trap is the perfect summer read for your backyard, pool, beach, or even snuggled on the couch with your favorite reading companion 🐾. I'm always in awe of how two authors can come together and create a story. Although sometimes, when reading a co-written book, I can tell the difference in writing styles, that was not the case with the Beach Trap; it was seamlessly written.

As for the characters, Blake was my cup of tea from her first chapter - I loved her determination and unwavering love for her grandfather. Conversely, Kat was not a character I identified with, and she was a bit too much for me. But then I began to appreciate her and loved reading along as Kat's character development progressed. I even loved the girl's romantic interests (hello, Noah 😍).

The Beach Trap is more a novel on friendship and sisterhood than romance (which I needed). But, don't get me wrong, some romance was mixed into the storyline, and I appreciated the excitement the steamier scenes added to the book.

By the end of the story, I loved Kat, Blake, Noah, Henry, and Max (but let's be honest, I loved Max from the beginning 🐶).

👯‍♀️ Alternating perspectives from Kat & Blake
👏🏼 Character development
🥹 Ending that gave me all the feels (and some tears)
✍🏼 Co-written story
💞 More about friendship & sisterhood

For those who enjoyed watching The Parent Trap and It Takes Two, I recommend you check out The Beach Trap by Alison Hammer and Bradeigh Godfrey (aka Ali Brady).

What's been your favorite summer read?