Not Always Happenstance
by Rachael Anderson
Lani has lived in Hana, Hawaii for five years. She’s learned to surf, fish, dive, and manage her grandmother’s bed and breakfast. She’s also learned to take one day at a time the way it should be taken—relaxed and unrushed, savoring every moment. But, like a large wave on the brink of breaking, her life is about to crash out of control. A proposal of marriage, a conniving grandmother, a cryptic Asian woman, and a handsome guest, and suddenly everything calm begins to churn, everything clear becomes confused, and all that was normal segues into peculiar. As Lani struggles against the current to hold her ground, she realizes that she can either continue to fight and eventually lose, or take a take a leap of faith, hold her breath, and ride the wave wherever it takes her.
***This book is part of the Power of the Matchmaker series that features one recurring character—the match maker—but it is a STAND-ALONE novel.***
MyThoughts:
Not Always Happenstance is February's novel in The Power of the Matchmaker Series. This time we meet Lokelani (Lani) who is helping her grandmother run a bed and breakfast in Hawaii. She has promised her fiancé that she will move back to California after the end of the summer season. She doesn't reckon on meeting Pearl, or Easton.
Easton is a traveling writer who comes to stay at the bed and breakfast in the "shack" that Lani's grandmother has left untouched for so long. Suddenly now, she wants it spruced up so this visitor can stay in it for the season.
Easton wants to get friendly with Lani and she doesn't want anything to do with him because she's engaged to Derek. Finally they come to an understanding that they can be just friends, but Lani finds herself attracted to Easton.
I liked the descriptions of the local flora and fauna of Hawaii and the author's knowledge of local culture. I don't know if the nature spot Lani and her friends visited that one evening really exists or if it was simply created for the novel, but it certainly sounds like a place that could be found in Hawaii.
I could understand Lani's anger at the betrayal she felt when she found out what kind of writer Easton was as compared to what he allowed her think he was. It's true he never told her a lie, but he didn't tell her the truth either.
I didn't like Easton very much at the beginning of the novel. I found him to be a very self-centred, thoughtless, individual who used and then discarded people. However, during the course of the book he changed, grew and demonstrated a different side of himself in his interactions with Lani, her friends, and his own nieces and nephews that changed my mind about him.
Lani also changed during the novel and learned more about herself, coming to realize how she really felt about Derek and gathering up the courage to do what she needed to do what she needed to do. I thought that took a lot of strength of character after he had waited for her so long.
I enjoyed this light clean romance novel very much. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good clean romance novel. I gave Not Always Happenstance a rating of 4 stars out of 5.
Thank you to the publishers for providing a copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts are my own.
Author Rachael AndersonA USA Today bestselling author, Rachael Anderson is the mother of four and is pretty good at breaking up fights, or at least sending guilty parties to their rooms. She can't sing, doesn't dance, and despises tragedies. But she recently figured out how yeast works and can now make homemade bread, which she is really good at eating.
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