The Gulf Between Us by Juliet Brandywine

One dog in need of a forever home.
One swoon-worthy ex-fiancé with an aggravating way of showing up everywhere.
And two broken hearts, desperate for a second chance.

Emily Driscoll is fine, thank you very much.

Single yet again, Emily decides to move back to her hometown of Westshore Beach in hopes of starting over. When she adopts a stray dog with a knack for chasing cars and drooling on her kitchen floor, she discovers the town veterinarian is none other than her ex-fiancé, Jason, who left her at the altar in Cancún eight years ago.

Emily tries to navigate her new life with her sassy best friend, her endearingly bohemian mom, and her rescue, Snaggles, at her side. But the more she bumps into Jason around town, the more she realizes that Snaggles might not be the only one in Westshore who deserves a second chance.

After Snaggles breaks his leg and her perfect plans begin to unravel, Emily finds herself turning to her ex-fiancé for help. Jason is supportive, gallant, and patient—and, despite their past, one flex of his spectacular bicep has her belly in freefall.

Dare she give their love another try?

My Review

We begin this book with a prologue in the past eight years ago. We are in Emily’s pov on her wedding day as she gets stood up. My impression of Jason isn’t the greatest at this point.

Now Emily’s mom is a character. I love her free fun sprites vibes leaping off the page. We get a case of a small world as we discover critical information concerning a man with a history. Jason is a hardworking veterinarian with an extreme amount of patience. So Jace is a nickname for Jason, but it needs to be clarified in the beginning text.

Omg, her dog Snaggles is one heck of an image. But I genuinely love the character’s heart for pets, even if she is a little hung up on the past. So we don’t get a reason for the past, but we do get regrets; however, their small world collides, and both characters are reeling.

Emily seems to be a master at avoidance. Still, I do love the summer vibes the author includes in this contemporary story. The book is well written, even going between the characters’ povs. The universe has it out to bring them together to fix the mistakes with many unexpected meetings and even tense conversations. Jason seems like a nice guy, but I don’t blame Emily for not being friendly with him.

The uncomfortable run-ins are starting to lead back to a second-chance romance. Oh, these books get steamy and start turning more into a women’s fiction focusing on her every thought and emotion.

This is a relationship that gets once again tested. Instead of failure and miscommunication, we watch it crumble but ultimately not fall apart. Trust is what it is all built on, and the author highlights this perfectly in this story. The ending of this story is surprising, and I expected more at the end than it had, but it wasn’t horrible. As close as we have grown to all the characters in this book, I’m surprised the ending didn’t give us happy for now or ever after.

If you would like to read The Gulf Between Us by Juliet Brandywine, you can find this book on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn on qualifying purchases.

If you liked this story, you may also enjoy books with these tags and categories Mid-life Fiction, Second Chance Romance, and Beach Romance.