Abducted by The Chocoholics

Just before Christmas my friend Kim introduced me to a series of romance novels called Lucky Harbor by Jill Shalvis. The first three books in the series is referred to as "the sister" books because each one centered around one of three sisters. The second group of books is called "the chocoholic" books. Each one is focused on one of three friends. This is my review of those three books.

The Headline: Three friends come together to support each other in going after what they really want. In Lucky Harbor, falling in love is just a bonus!

Time in Captivity: The Chocoholic books follows Mallory, Amy, and Grace through their own trials and tribulations. Mallory is struggling to get a health care clinic off the ground and running, Amy is attempting to recreate a trip her grandmother took in her youth that helped her in finding her own hope, peace, and heart. And Grace has just left home and a lucrative job offer because the intended boss was making sexual advances towards her. Now she is just trying to land on her feet in a new town.

I loved all three of the girls and I actually really loved their instant friendship. They meet one night during a snow storm that locks them in at the local diner and they end up stuffing their faces with chocolate cake. From then they decide that they will support each other in going after what they really want. They decide to meet together every few days over chocolate cake, brownies, chocolate chip pancakes, cupcakes, whatever it is as long as it's chocolate!

Mallory is a nurse and she meets Ty after he suffers a head injury during the said snow storm. He has a lot of his own demons that he is struggling with and Mallory is known as the town sweetheart. I really felt bad for Mallory because she felt like everyone in the whole town was counting on her and she felt like she had to hold everyone together. But I loved that she had so much faith in Ty even when he didn't have it in himself.

Amy is a waitress at the local diner so we have actually seen her in a few of the other books already. She is strong and doesn't take crap from anyone! She has never really felt at home anywhere and when she finds her grandmothers journals that dictate a trip she had taken in Lucky Harbor that brought her peace. Amy tries to recreate this same trip and ends up stumbling across local forest ranger Matt Bowers. I loved that we already knew how bad ass Amy was and then we got to see all of her walls come down as she started to open up to Matt. In the end she was just as tough a chick as in the beginning but now she is in love!

Grace was by far my favorite of the three stories! Her book literally had me laughing out loud at how crazy she was. She was just floundering all over the place! I don't want to paint the picture that she was some kind of scatter brained flake because she is the furthest thing from it. But while being highly capable and intelligent she is also realizing that everything she was working for was to please others. Now she has to decide for herself what path she wants to follow. Hopefully a path that leads straight to the arms of one Dr. Josh Scott.

Now Dr. Scott comes with his own baggage however. A sister who has never fully healed after a car accident that left her parents dead and her in a wheelchair, at least not emotionally healed. And Dr. Scott has a young son that he has full custody over. More often then not I find young kids in books annoy the crap out of me! But this kid was adorable! He barked at everything and he was obsessed with Star Wars!

The Abductor: The overall abductor in this series is definitely Jill Shalvis and her lovable town of Lucky Harbor. In these books all of our favorite local townies are back and better then ever! How could you not fall in love in that place!?!

Point of Abduction: To be completely honest I read each of these books so fast I can't remember what was the one scene that really hooked me in each. But I do remember which one it was for Grace's story in Forever and a Day. It was when Grace was on the phone with her mom on one line and Dr. Scott on the other and she kept trying to click over and tell her mom something personal but would accidentally tell Dr. Scott instead! That is a gimmick that has been done before in movies and what not but it was still freaking hilarious!

Pick up lines: This was my favorite quote from Amy's story in At Last:

As for peace, she hadn't been quite sure. When she thought about her life, she knew she'd always lived it to survive. But she was beginning to see that there was more to life than mere survival, so much more. And maybe that was peace right there, just learning that.

Abduction ratings:

Lucky In Love, At Last, and Forever And A Day all got...

For the humor factor alone Forever And A Day is up there as one of my new favorites but I really loved each of the books!