Beth Kendrick

Sometimes it's the little things that send you, or someone else, right over the edge. And sometimes that edge is one you end up not wanting to climb back up onto, not that you realize it to start with. Beth Kendrick's third novel in the Black Dog Bay series, Put a Ring on It, opens with just such an edge.

Brighton's fiance has asked for the engagement ring back. For him, their argument about the efficiency of the zipper merge during their morning commute was the last straw. Feigning sickness show more to leave work once she realizes that Colin isn't going to call and repair things between them, Brighton, a buttoned up insurance actuary who carefully weighs the pros and cons of everything, calls an old friend and invites herself to stay. What she doesn't know is that her old friend has just relocated to Black Dog Bay, Delaware, the break-up and broken hearts capital of the country. Once there, Brighton acts impulsively and also rediscovers her creative side through her love for jewelry design. First, she meets Jake Sorensen, who would be the perfect rebound relationship. He'd be perfect, except they actually end up married after former fiance Colin calls Brighton and tells her that he's married a woman he just met. Her spontaneous revenge marriage to Jake is just tit for tat. And in her case, Jake knows the score. They'll stay married for two weeks to allow Brighton to cut loose in ways she never dreamed (not too loose though as two weeks is all the vacation time she has from work). But what if the life she's living is the one she wants to keep? And what if the cons she uncharacteristically didn't take time to consider could derail this happiness?

Although this novel is the third in the series, it stands alone just fine. Characters from previous books do make appearances but not knowing their back stories is no detriment to the reader. Brighton has allowed fear to dictate who she's become in life. She's too financially scared to do what she loves and feed her creative side and so she subsumes all of that to the boring and measured practicality of being an actuary. Going to Black Dog Bay and acting so incredibly out of character allows her to reconnect with the person she's hidden inside herself for so long. Learning who she wants to be and how she wants to live her life brings her happiness as well as insecurity and it is in the acceptance and embracing of that insecurity that she really starts to live. Jake is drawn as a sexy, stoic character whose past history, while not entirely secret, is not mentioned until it threatens the budding relationship he and Brighton are building. It turns out that the pasts that shaped both of them have a very similar base, even if they've reacted to that base in wildly different ways.

As in the previous books in the series, Kendrick has written a frothy, cute romantic story that just happens to have a woman who is finally being empowered to be who she wants to be, one who finds happiness and success and love because she is determined to follow her own heart. This is light and fun escape reading with an ending that won't disappoint. show less

Black Dog Bay, Delaware is a town where women can go to recover from their breakups and heartaches. Catering to well-heeled tourists as well as the lovelorn, this quirky, small, oceanfront town is a good place to find sympathy, to heal, and to reinvent your life and start over. Beth Kendrick created the tightly connected town full of eccentric characters in her novel, Cure for the Common Breakup, and she returns to it with New Uses For Old Boyfriends.

Lila Alders had made it. She moved out show more of tiny Black Dog Bay. She was on tv as the host of a home shopping show, moderately famous enough to be recognized, occasionally. She and her husband had money. Yep, she'd made it, right up until she hadn't. Her contract not renewed and unable to get auditions for other tv jobs, her cheating husband has divorced her and left her destitute, so she has nowhere to go but home to her recently widowed mother so she can lick her wounds in Black Dog Bay while she considers what to do with her life. All of her possessions in the back of her FUV (the name she calls the enormous SUV she bought just before her ex-husband cancelled her credit card and cleared out their joint account--say it out loud if you're still not getting it), she breaks down on the way into town, running into her ex-boyfriend from high school, Ben.

The plan is to move back in with her recently widowed mom, Daphne, and help with all the things that Lila's dad used to do for his wife while also renewing her acquaintance with Ben. But things don't run as smoothly as all that. Lila quickly discovers that her father hid the extent of his debts from her mother, her mother has continued living as if her income was unlimited. There's nothing for it but to sell the gorgeous home she grew up in no matter how much it hurts her and how much her mother protests. Daphne is a former model who feels trapped in Black Dog Bay and is missing her late husband so much that she can't bear to think about selling the home he built for her and that she has spent decades decorating and perfecting. So when Lila finds trunks full of her mother's old couture clothing in the attic, she determines to open a vintage clothing store, and hopefully make enough to save the house. As all of this is coming together, she tries to rekindle a relationship with Ben, who is, no doubt about it, a really good guy. Ben isn't the only guy in town though; there's also Malcolm, the quiet guy she doesn't remember from high school, a former Marine who, having learned to sew from his mother and grandmother, makes covert repairs to the delicate clothing Lila brings to him.

As Lila tries desperately to save her mother, the house, and herself, through setback after setback, she starts to realize that she has been so busy being who everyone else expects her to be that she doesn't even know who she actually is, and she may not have ever known. She is learning strength and confidence. She is making friends with other women who like her and support her. And she is getting to know the Lila that can make things happen, not just for herself but for those she cares about. The book is fun and flirty but it also has a strong undercurrent of empowerment weaving through the lively and entertaining chick lit plot. Kendrick revisits characters from the first Black Dog Bay book and a knowledge of the first book does give some additional insight into the town, the speed at which gossip spreads in it, and the eccentric characters who inhabit the place, but even without it, this is still an amusing and enjoyable read that easily stands on its own. The romance is mostly predictable but the real focus is on Lila, her growth, and her newfound ability to find happiness and joy in the people and place around her and as such, is a delight to read. show less

A more critical reviewer would likely characterize this novel as fluff and while I couldn't argue that assessment, I will also say that there's something cozy and comforting about a light read filled with humor, romance, and overly dramatic characters. This book may not be Hemingway, but it is perfect to read while relaxing with a glass of wine and sometimes I need that more than I need critically acclaimed literature. This novel features a broke divorcee who's trying to help her recently show more widowed mother through a financially precarious situation. They attempt to make a business out of the closets of vintage clothing her mother's collected over the years, with a little help from a few ex-boyfriends who just happen to have the needed resources and skills. And, not surprisingly, everything manages to work out in the end. Did everything turn out just a little too perfectly? Yes. Did it make for fun reading? Also yes. show less

How do you heal from a breakup? Do you dive into a carton of ice cream? Do you burn all of his photos? Do you dump all of his things on the lawn or sidewalk. Do you plot some grisly punishment you hope the universe will mete out on your behalf? Do you call his cell and hang up just to hear his voice on his message? What if there was a place dedicated to healing your broken heart that didn't cause you to gain weight or grovel for his attention or become bitter? In Beth Kendrick's newest show more novel, Cure for the Common Breakup, there is such a place.

Summer Benson is a flight attendant who is flying to Paris to spend a naughty weekend with her pilot boyfriend. When a fellow flight attendant tells her that Aaron is going to propose in Paris, Summer isn't at all sure that's what she wants. She's always been the good time girl, no strings attached, and she's perfectly happy that way. Or is she? Horrifically, the plane crashes just after take-off and Summer comes to in the hospital, burned and broken from helping passengers escape the plane. But the physical brokenness is nothing compared to the emotional damage when Aaron, sitting at her bedside, tells her that the accident has clarified for him the fact that he loves her but not enough to marry her.

Crushed despite her own ambivalence about the relationship, Summer flees to Black Dog Bay, a small Delaware town she'd read about in a magazine, a town that specializes in helping people recover from breakups. As she drives into town looking for a hotel, she swerves to avoid a turtle and ends up plowing through a trellis and rose bushes in the yard of the good looking but unattainably aloof mayor, Dutch Jansen. It is not an auspicious way to arrive in town. When she finally gets to the Better Off Bed-and-Breakfast, her reputation has preceded her. Summer starts to settle into the quaint beach town, befriending the generous locals and putting the more unpleasant residents in their places. She is also determined to have a fling with the delectable Dutch. What she doesn't count on is becoming a role model of sorts for Dutch's teenaged sister, Ingrid, nor on becoming the companion for the town's most irascible citizen, Hattie Huntington, who is still nurturing a hurt decades in the past.

Summer is a fun and flirty character. She is a dominating, take-charge personality and her skills at placating passengers on an airplane certainly come in handy in dealing with the less pleasant people in town. Her relationship with Dutch is fairly predictable but the novel is really more about being brave enough to find a new direction for your life and to have the courage to look into your heart and understand your own fears and how they've shaped you rather than about the romance. The romance is actually like the whipped cream on this sweet and charming sundae. The secondary characters are delightful, sassy, and completely appealing. The concept of the town's purpose is highly entertaining and well integrated into the storyline. And the novel has a refreshingly positive spin on recovering from a breakup, without bitterness or heated anger. It's a fun and light-hearted look at one woman who is afraid to commit her heart until this town and the people in it show her her true capacity for caring. show less