Once in a Lifetime by Jill Shalvis

Once in a Lifetime 

In the 9^th installment of the Lucky Harbor series we meet Ben McDaniel a widow who for the past couple of years has been in war torn countries helping improve local communities. In addition, you also meet Aubrey Wellington, the local girl who everyone calls trouble who is trying to revitalize her Aunts old bookstore.  These two unlikely people are brought together when Aubrey’s aunt hires Ben to help finish renovating the store.  Having talked very little to each other in high school will they be able to tolerate each other enough to finish this store?

All Aubrey wants to do is make her aunts bookstore successful while adding in a little of herself to it. However, things don’t go as planned when she stumbles into an AA meeting where she realizes that she may be able to right the wrongs of her past. Put first she will need to make the people of Lucky Harbor realize that she isn’t the trouble teen she used to be.  Unfortunately she soon figures out it might not be so easy as she thought when the top person on her list to apologize to is Ben who has no idea what she did to him.

Will Aubrey be able to right her wrongs and keep herself from falling for Ben McDaniel’s? Will Ben be able to get through this carpentry job without falling for Aubrey and will he be able to forgive her when she tells him the truth?

My Review:

This is the 9^th book in the Lucky Harbor series that I have read of Jill’s. Once again Jill does not disappoint. She is able to write a great story that incorporates love, friendship and laughter.  Because Jill does a great job of describing the characters I was once again able to really feel like I knew them and the emotions that they were going through.

In addition, Jill does a great job of incorporating previous characters from other books into this book. I think this is great because as a reader you like to read about previous characters to see how their love story has evolved.

Lastly, I really loved the humor in this book. From Lucille the well-known gossip of Lucky Harbor to Aubrey’s cat who she inherited when she took over the bookstore.  Jill does a great job of combining fiction and real life things that happen in her life into a great story.

Jill once again created a spectacular book and I can’t wait to read more books from her. I think that even though this book is a part of a series it can be read individually. There are only a couple spots in the book that they refer to things that happened in previous books.