Review: Ties – Steph Campbell and Liz Reinhardt

When a shiny new convertible arrives for her twenty-first birthday, Hattie Beckett has had enough of her absent dad trying to buy a place in her life. It’s time for him to face her–or get out of her life forever.

She tosses some clothes in a bag, looks up her father’s last known address, and sets her GPS for Silver Stand, California.

When she arrives at a beach-bum paradise that’s totally foreign to her New England upbringing and finds nothing but an empty lot where her dad maybe once lived, her immediate instinct is to pack up her car and head right back to Connecticut.

But she also finds… Deo. The half-brother she never knew she had. He and his hippy-dippy mom insist that Hattie stick around—at least for the summer. And with all of her friends spending the summer abroad, what else does she have to do?

Her ideas about family are blown wide open as Deo and Marigold pull her in with their charm and love. But there’s still a huge question mark where her dad is concerned, and that question mark definitely looms over her ideas about love and relationships.

When Hattie meets Ryan, the college dropout turned competitive sailor, her perspective flips with her heart. Like it or not, Hattie is falling fast and hard for Ryan… even if it’s the last thing that she expected – and the last thing her newly found brother wants for her.

Series: Lengths #4
Release Date: August 26, 2013
Publisher: Steph Campbell
Source: Inkslinger PR
Reviewer: Shannon
Rating:

Buy the book at:

Reviewer’s Thoughts

Hattie comes to California searching for her father, a man who lavishes her with expensive gifts but can never give her the one thing she wants.  Him.  But what she finds in the little sea side town of Silver Strand, California, is a family where she belongs and a man who shows her that falling in love, even if your heart gets broken, is worth it.

Hattie is a very analytic, very black and white person (except if she’s had a little too much wine…then all bets are off).  She speaks her mind and doesn’t cut anyone a lot of slack.  But beneath all that is a girl just trying to fit in.  I felt for her, because she became a different person when she was openly embraced by her half-brother, Deo, and his family and friends.  She’d been missing that most of her life, which is probably why she acts the way she does.  Then she meets Ryan.  Despite her initial thoughts about dating and what she was looking for in a relationship, Ryan breaks down Hattie’s walls and her prejudices to show her that she can’t always map out her life and keep it sterile to protect herself.

I really enjoyed all the secondary characters in this story.  I haven’t read any of the other Lengths series books, so being introduced to all these wonderful characters made the story for me.  They were a big family that very easily welcomed an outsider from Connecticut and taught her that she can be loved for who she is and open herself up to people.