REVIEW Not Always Happenstance.

TITLE. Not Always Happenstance
AUTHOR. Rachael Anderson
PUBLISHER. HEA Publishing
RELEASE DATE. February 1st 2016
PAGES. 220
FORMAT. Ebook
GENRE. Romance, Contemporary

SUMMARY.
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.
 

REVIEW.
So this is the second book in the Power of the Matchmaker series, but just as the other ones, it can be read as a standalone too. 

As you might know already I’ve made my own little challenge out of this series, and I still had to read this one to get in the right pace. The great thing about this challenge and series is that I get to read all these books from authors I’ve never heard of read anything from. This way I get to know all these new writers and get to find out if she is for me.

But, with this one it was not really for me. Yes it was a nice romance, they had some tension and heat.. but not much happens. This makes me realise, that even though I love me some romance every now and then, I still prefer books with more action in it.

Because, most of all, romance books are incredibly predictable. You know right from the start they are going to end up with each other and all you have to do is wait for them to realise that. When that has happened, some kind of mistake is made.. they break up, but make up with some sort of big sacrifice on one of both sides and get back together.

In this book the whole plot was laid out right from the start, and even though it was kind of cute and adorable.. I started to get bored. I knew what was going to happen and I just kept waiting for them to go through the standard stuff. And the weird thing ? It is only 220 pages and I still thought it took too long !! Hahaha. 

Some books add something extra, because in romance I need that.. Like some issues or trauma’s from the past.. but in this book not much happened apart from their romance and I found it kind of dull and did not add anything special.

The only thing that made it more interesting for me was Pearl. I loved her in If We Were a Movie by Kelly Oram.. but was kind of disappointed by her lack of appearance in Broken Things to Mend by Karey White.
In this book, she was a continuous presence throughout the entire story and I loved that. She was kind of obvious about her intentions.. but that made it only more fun.
Just as in Kelly Oram’s book, she had this magical and mysterious aura around her and she made things happen that were not normal. People kept cancelling so she could stay there and I loved how she did add some magic in this sorry, boring romance.

The main characters were not really special too. I liked both of them.. but I disliked how easy they changed their minds. They are very different, but when they met, there was not really a lot of struggle to compromise. They both were just okay with it.. and I would have liked to see more real struggle to, you know, make it more realistic. Things normally don’t just work out because they like each other…
What I did like though was the surroundings. I've never been to Maui, but they made it all sound so great and beautiful.. I love how they explored the Island and went to all these pretty and secretive places. It made it more charming.

FINAL THOUGHTS.
So all in all it was not a bad book, and if you are a big romance lover this will probably be great for you. But I need more in my books. More action, more stuff happening. More excitement and surprises.. Because no matter how I put it, it is just a basis recipe romance novel with not much else going for it. So I would like to give this one 2.5 Freyja’s. And I am looking forward to continue this challenge !!