Review: ‘The Friendship Pact’ by Jill Shalvis
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The Friendship Pact
by Jill ShalvisSeries: Sunrise Cove #2
Published by Avon on June 14, 2022
SubGenres: Contemporary Romance
Format: eBook
Pages: 384
Source: Library - Libby
Audience: 18+/Adult
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New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis returns to Sunrise Cove with a powerful, moving story about a young woman on a quest to find the truth about her father who learns the meaning of true love along the way.
Alone in the world, Tae Holmes and her mother April pretty much raised each other, but as Tae starts asking questions about the father she's never met, April, for the first time in her life, goes silent. To make matters worse, Tae is dangerously close to broke and just manages to avoid financial meltdown when she lands a shiny new contract with an adventure company for athletes with disabilities and wounded warriors.
Her first big fundraiser event falls flat, but what starts out as a terrible, horrible, no-good night turns into something else entirely when Tae finds herself face-to-face with Riggs Copeland. She hasn't seen the former Marine since their brief fling in high school, and while still intensely drawn to him, she likes her past burned and buried, thank you very much. Hence their friendship pact.
But when April oddly refuses to help Tae track down her father, it's Riggs who unexpectedly comes to her aid. On a hunt to unlock the past, the two of them find themselves on a wild ride and learn a shocking truth, while also reluctantly bonding in a way neither had seen coming. Now Tae must decide whether she's going to choose love ... or walk away from her own happiness.
The Friendship Pact is the second book in Jill Shalvis’s Sunrise Cove series. This installment touched my heart in many ways and summoned a range of emotions. It made me happy and laugh, but it also had its sad moments. This is why I enjoy reading Jill Shalvis’s books. She makes me feel for each of the characters she writes about and their situations, and she also makes me feel like they are family, and I’m rooting for their happiness.
This was the case with Tae Holmes, Riggs Copeland, and even Tae’s mother, April. These characters will live rent-free in my head after reading The Friendship Pact. Their stories are emotional but so impactful. I was in tears by the end of this book, but happy tears because everyone gets a well-deserved happily-ever-after.
The FMC, Tae Holmes, finds out that her father, who she thought was a war hero and died in service, is actually alive and well. She wants to know why her mother, April, kept the truth about her father from her, but she knows her mother won’t tell her, so she’ll find out on her own instead. In comes the MMC, Riggs Copeland, who she’s run into quite frequently since he’s back in town, helping his brother with his business temporarily. Tae and Riggs have a past together that involved them starting a friendship pact that has me in effect for years now, but the more time they spend together, the stronger feelings come forward for both of them.
This book had me in such a chokehold the whole time I was reading it, particularly when it came to the romantic storyline of Tae and Riggs. Their relationship is a slow burn, filled with tension as they navigate their pasts and confront current challenges in their lives. The wait for their romance to develop is worthwhile, as they both have grown since high school and gradually realize how much they mean to each other as adults the more time they spend together. I loved how Riggs was there to help Tae on finding her father and he was there to help her when it came to the truth of why things happened the way they did.
The ending really moved me, the moment Tae met her father and discovered the truth about him was incredibly emotional and brought me to tears. This is exactly why I enjoy reading Jill Shalvis’s books. She creates unforgettable characters and writes beautiful, emotionally driven HEAs. I wish I could give this book more than five stars because it deserves it. Now, I’m onto the next book in this series because I need more stories like this one and I know Jill Shalvis can deliver.
If you haven’t read a Jill Shalvis book, you are truly missing out.
What to Expect:
🩵Small Town Romance
🩵Second Chance
🩵Friends with Benefits
About Jill Shalvis
Multiple New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is … mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning heartwarming and full of humor novels wherever books are sold and visit her website for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures. Her most recent book, Almost Just Friends, was just published last month and her next book, The Summer Deal, comes out in June.
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