I’m lucky enough to have had the opportunity to read So Hard to Do bySally Basmajian. Rom-Coms aren’t my typical choice, but the idea of one of the protagonists being an older woman trying to find her way and let her daughter struggle on her own appealed to me.
Here’s the blurb:
Suze Foster has always been devoted to her daughter. As a child, Jannie required extra support in school, but now-at age 29-she’s a rising executive. Suze, thrilled with Jannie’s success, is finally free to follow her own dreams.
Without Suze’s dedicated attention, though, Jannie flounders. In a careless moment, she floods her apartment. Enter our hero, Aram-her hot but significantly older neighbor. He saves the day, and for Jannie, it’s love at first sight.
Not so much for Aram, though, who falls head over heels for Suze when they accidentally meet. Unaware of Jannie’s feelings, Suze is equally smitten.
In this twisted triangle, can a happily-ever-after be achieved? Or will someone’s heart break and the mother-daughter bond be severed forever?
See what I mean?
Before the excerpts and author info, let me give you my thoughts.
Basmajjian’s writing is clean and accessible. It’s easy to get lost in the the world she’s building. She gives just enough description of people, places, and events to envision them without getting bogged down in unnecessary verbiage.
The pacing is good and the plot leads to a successful conclusion. The moments of humor are fun and funny and relatable. Here is where is her descriptive ability pays off. She gets to the punchline in a timely, effective way. I also like how the humor balances the tension in the book, giving the reader a place to breathe.
If I have any criticism of the book at all, it’s that in the beginning I was annoyed by Jannie. She’s a monster that Suze created, even though she does so with the best of intentions. Having said that, it wasn’t enough to harm the story. It was a personal issue with me. Don’t let my nitpick stop you from checking this book out.
Now for more from the book:
He was the most good-looking man she’d ever seen. Luxuriant locks. She bet that’s how a Harlequin Romance would describe his hair. And under the full beard, maybe even a cleft chin. And most definitely, a sensuous lower lip. Ooh la la.
As she mused in an X-rated way about his mouth, Jannie remembered something from a book she’d read where the heroine had a habit of biting her lower lip. It drove men mad.
So she tried it. Nibble, nibble.
Aram just looked at her. His breathing didn’t accelerate. His chest didn’t heave.
She tried again. Nibble, nibble. The prolonged silence was beginning to be uncomfortable.
“Are you all right, Jannie?” Aram finally asked. He studied her.
Well, that hadn’t gone so well. But she’d never tried to flirt with an older man before. Maybe they needed something more obvious.
She attempted to look coyly up at Aram through her eyelashes. This wasn’t as easy as all those romance authors made it sound. She felt her forehead contract, her nose wrinkle and her upper lip pull away from her teeth in her effort to do the impossible.
“Jannie, are you having an allergic reaction? Shellfish, maybe? Isn’t that crab I smell coming from your condo? Do you carry an EpiPen?”
She stamped her foot in frustration. It was supposed to look fierce and cute, but she could tell from Aram’s face that he was way more startled than turned on.
And how about the author?
After leaving the corporate world, Sally Basmajian discovered the joy of writing. Her fiction and nonfiction stories have appeared in newspapers such as The Globe & Mail and in several anthologies. In 2022 she won prizes for memoir pieces (Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop, Gulf Coast Writers Association), and was thrilled to have a poem selected by the journal Antithesis. She expects to be busy in 2023, when her first two novels appear: in January, a light-hearted romance, So Hard to Do (published by Creative James Media) and in October, a much darker one, Fountain of Evil (Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC).
Website: https://www.sallybasmajian.com
Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/mVAXE5
http://instagram.com/sallybasmajian
http://twitter.com/sallybasmajian
http://facebook.com/sallybasmajian
https://www.tiktok.com/@sallybasmajian
Buy link:
After leaving the corporate world, Sally Basmajian discovered the joy of writing. Her fiction and nonfiction stories have appeared in newspapers such as The Globe & Mail and in several anthologies. In 2022 she won prizes for memoir pieces (Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop, Gulf Coast Writers Association), and was thrilled to have a poem selected by the journal Antithesis. She expects to be busy in 2023, when her first two novels appear: in January, a light-hearted romance, So Hard to Do (published by Creative James Media) and in October, a much darker one, Fountain of Evil (Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC).
Website: https://www.sallybasmajian.com
Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/mVAXE5
http://instagram.com/sallybasmajian
http://twitter.com/sallybasmajian
http://facebook.com/sallybasmajian
https://www.tiktok.com/@sallybasmajian
Buy link:
And last but not least: The Rafflecopter Code!
D. S. Dehel 