This Thing Called Love

A Mirror Lake Novel, Book 1

By: Miranda Liasson

Narrated by: Amy McFadden

Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's Summary

New York City self-help editor Olivia Marks faces her toughest assignment yet: parenthood. When her sister dies in a car accident, the career-oriented Olivia suddenly becomes the guardian to her four-week-old niece, Annabelle. She also becomes a challenge for Annabelle's uncle, Brad Rushford, an old flame whose gorgeous green eyes bring Olivia's fevered memories rushing back.

As the two circle each other in their small hometown of Mirror Lake, Olivia finds that Brad is as sexy and charming as ever - and now he's the darling of the town as he expands his successful lakefront restaurant. Is his flirting designed to get serious, or get Olivia to lower her defenses and give up guardianship? What about the turreted, brick Victorian house Brad tours with a realtor and an attractive, no-strings-attached reporter, the same place where he and Olivia shared an unforgettable night years ago - is he looking for a future with Olivia, or planning to start a new life with someone else?

In the first heartwarming Mirror Lake story, steamy trysts and surprising twists lead two people to a future neither one expected.

©2015 Miranda Liasson (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Not my style

I don’t like steamy novels, just sweet romance. This was porn to me. No like!

Great read and listen..

WOW! There’s a lot of one and two star reviews on Amazon but I, personally, found this book wonderful. While Olivia hadn’t a clue what the heck she was doing when it came to Annabelle she was willing to learn. She was so afraid that if she gave Annabelle to someone else in the family, someone with kids that knew what they were doing, she would be failing her sister, that’s why she hung on so hard. I could also see why there was a push-pull situation with Brad.

I love second-chance stories, and Brad and Olivia’s story was awesome. They loved each other unconditionally when they were teenagers. AND the sexual tension between the two of them couldn’t have been written any better. I LOVE sexual tension. Better than the sex itself. If all authors who write sex in their books would learn how to write sexual tension all romance books –with sex- would be so much better.

A word that really bothers me when reading reviews on these kinds of books is “predictable.” Really? If you’re read a simple love story, no mystery, no suspense, no murder, no real drama to speak of, how would it not be “predictable.” Boy and girl, how they meet, or met again, they fall in love and have a HEA. Yeah, that’s pretty “predictable.” It’s every love story out there, just the story has changed. That’s why I’ve started reading romance mysteries and romance spy books. I was getting so tired of page after page of a love story, sometimes 300 or 400 pages of angst and misunderstandings and more pages of filler in order to bring the page count up that high. Simple romance novels just aren’t that entertaining anymore. However, this one was a free read-free listen so I decided to give it a chance, and it only has 210 pages. AND I thought it was really good.

Overall, this was a nice “predictable” love story with great secondary characters, Alex, Tom and Meg. Even Trish and Kevin sounded like a really nice couple, even though they were dead from the beginning of the book.

There was swearing and the F-bomb was said 3 times.

As to the narration: I absolutely love Amy McFadden’s narration. She has so much emotion when she reads. Men sound like men and that’s the most important thing for a female reader to know how to do. And when you add emotions to it it doesn’t get any better than that.

Fine for a Light Chick Lit Read

The story was a bit cliche, but it was fine and kept me occupied during my long commute. The narrator was pretty good, although some of the voices were more annoying than others. If you like chick lit, you won't be disappointed.

Good Story

This is a good story and lightly covers issues when parents die and young kids go to one family member or another. What took the rating down for me was childish behavior between the MCs and the constant negative head babble.

This thing called love

Wow, what a happy ending. this was good,
I loved Olivia and Brad, wonderful first love story. A lot of hardships to deal with, broken hearts with time passed. It's a perfect
story to curl up with this winter. A happy ever after.

I Could Not Finish This

It sounded like a decent premise. Woman returns home to raise her niece after said niece was orphaned only to potentially rekindle an old flame. Unfortunately, there are too many things wrong with this book and the narration.

I'm not sure why but the tone Any McFadden chose to use was freakishly close to vocal fry. Between the purposeful grinding vocal and the tempo she used it came off as both snobbish and incipid. Imagine having Kim Kardashian read to you this book and you'd be pretty close.

As for the writing itself there is an issue with the style. A lot of the book is internal dialogue. Great books show and don't need to tell. Added to this issue is the thoughts being expressed, the characters vacillate on almost every subject expressed by the internal dialogue. So far the dad of our protagonist was my favorite character just because he didn't get any internal dialogue by the time I had to quit the book.

Also this is a tale about learning how to be a mom and yet so much of this book lacks the baby actually being in the scene or any references to who is watching it or at least there being a baby monitor around. Suspension of disbelief was already difficult with how the characters acted but who leaves a baby alone for that long with zero means of making sure it is still okay?

I gave this book three stars because I couldn't finish it. It might get better but I'm not willing to find out.

This was awesome story

This was an awesome story. I love happy endings and this had it all in there.

Nice read

Get a cup of coffee or tea, sit down and enjoy a sappy love story. This book to me by surprise. Just what i needed to take me away from everday struggles. Just purchased book #2

Story good, voice is annoying

I liked the story and the narrator told it well
However her pronunciation of some words is so annoying and bugged me the whole time

Great Book

This was a great book filled with lots of sadness, but even more happy moments.

I love books written in a small town atmosphere.

Heart break

Loved this audio book . It's true , You never forget your first true love 💗

A quite incredulous story.

I persevered with this novel because I knew that it would all end well, but to be honest, it is one of the least credulous tales that I've listened to in years.

As far as chick lit goes, I think that the author has misjudged her audience. This is probably best suited for gullible pre teens or young teenagers!

I can't fully explain my incredulity without offering up a spoiler, so suffice to say that, notwithstanding the romantic ending, I don't actually think that Olivia would actually be a suitable mother to her niece…
I listened to this book as part of my Kindle Unlimited subscription. I wouldn't pay for it otherwise, I don't feel that it's worth the investment.