'Brown-Eyed Girl' Travis Family #4 by Lisa Kleypas

Received via NetGalley

From the BLURB:

This is the fourth and final installment of the Travis series, following on from Sugar Daddy, Blue Eyed Devil and Smooth Talking Stranger.

Avery Crosslin is a talented young fashion designer with a bright future ahead of her. But when the company goes into liquidation, Avery finds herself without a job and a boyfriend who decides to leave her.

When her father falls ill, Avery is by his side day and night. But one evening she notices a young man, Joe, in distress and offers to help. Their instant attraction to one another is magnetic but even though she is unexpectedly charmed by the good-looking stranger, Avery tells him that she has to leave. He asks for her name and number, but she lies and tells him she has a boyfriend. At this point in Avery's life, the last thing she wants or needs is more complications.

The next day, as Avery returns to the hospital to thank the nurses for taking such good care of her father at the end of his life, one of them gives her an envelope from Joe. It is addressed to "Brown-Eyed Girl."

Avery knows she wants to see Joe again but she faces a dilemma. When she learns that Joe is the man responsible for her father's death she is troubled.

Is there any hope of a future for them both?

‘Brown-Eyed Girl’ is the fourth book in Lisa Kleypas’ ‘Travis’ contemporary romance series. It comes some six years after third book ‘Smooth Talking Stranger’ was released, after which Lisa Kleypas maintained she had no story lined up for third brother Joe Travis … which is why fans are so delightedly surprised and excited by the release of ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’.

I have a particular love for Lisa Kleypas’ contemporary romance series. The first Kleypas book I ever read was ‘Sugar Daddy’ and after that I was hooked, and mowed through her historical ‘Hathaways’,  ‘Wallflowers’, and ‘Gamblers’, and her second contemporary series, ‘Friday Harbor’. I love her, unabashedly. She’s one of the first authors I’d recommend to anyone reading romance for the first time – because I truly believe that a good Lisa Kleyas book can hook anyone.

But I do love her ‘Travis’ series; in particular ‘Smooth Talking Stranger’ is one of my favourite contemporary romance books. But I was like every other fan, desperately curious about Joe Travis who’d had a near-death experience in ‘Stranger’ and remained for me a somewhat tragic hero for Kleypas not giving him a HEA … now that I’ve read ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’ I can say I’m a little bit torn on Joe’s long-overdue tale.

Joe’s love-interest is wedding planner Avery Crosslin. Jaded by a womanising, absent father and a horrendous love-gone-wrong story of her own, Avery still believes in happily-ever-after, just for other people. When she meets Joe at a Texas upper-crust wedding, they both seem to fall hard … but while Joe’s keen to get something started with the curvy redhead, gun’s blazing, Avery is a hold-out to her own heart;

 I had been an entirely different person with Joe. But I wasn’t ready to be someone new – I’d grown too accustomed to being the woman Brian Palomer had jilted at the altar. If I let go of that identity, I wasn’t sure what would happen. I was afraid to imagine the possibilities. All I knew was that no man would ever hurt me the way Brian had, and I was the only one who could protect myself from that.

Their story is a delicious back-and-forth, thrust-and-parry as Joe patiently waits out Avery’s fears and burgeoning career demands. But for all that I did like Joe and Avery as a couple, they seemed to be missing that distinctive Kleypas *something* to make them as memorable as Gage and Liberty, Jack and Ella before them (I’m actually in the minority and don’t rate ‘Blue-Eyed Devil’, or the coupling of Hardy and Haven).

I think it’s partly because Joe and Avery didn’t seem to get enough page-time together. Maybe it’s just me, but I missed getting to settle into their romance a little more … and I possibly also feel that way because it felt like Avery should have had a confrontation with her ex, Brian, for how much time she spent using him as an excuse to avoid Joe.

It’s also that ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’ includes some of Lisa Kleypas’s best secondary character storylines that threaten to overshadow the main romance. One concerns Avery’s Hispanic half-sister and partner in her wedding planning business, Sofia. She has a nemesis in their colleague, Steven, whom the women assumed was gay for his impeccable style, taste and that he works in wedding planning … but after discovering that he’s heterosexual (and happily sat in a dressing room with Sofia to choose outfits once) the two have been at each other’s throats ever since – in a heady mix of sexual tension and romantic impasse.

The other secondary story concerns a Travis cousin, Ryan Chase, who finds himself in unhappy need of Avery and Sofia’s wedding planning expertise. I was really, really intrigued by Ryan, even more so by book’s end when his story finished up on a bit of a romantic challenge. Now, I know that Lisa Kleypas has said Joe’s story concludes the ‘Travis’ series … but I hope that means Ryan Chase’s will be the first book in a new contemporary series spin-off. Please? Please! I can’t go another six years like I did for Joe, hoping that Ryan gets his HEA!  

I really did enjoy ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’, especially to catch up with the entire Travis clan again. It’s another one of the reasons I love Kleypas’ family romance sagas; that we get to check back in with the happily-ever-afters of past books, and all the characters we love and miss.

If I were just basing my score on Avery and Joe, ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’ would probably get a 3/5 … but because of the stellar secondary story of Sofia and Steven, not to mention the tantalizing possibilities of Ryan Chase, I’m giving it a –

4/5 

'Sugar Daddy' by Lisa KLEYPAS

Lisa Kleypas is best known for her regency romance’s – she’s had plenty of success with series such as ‘Bow Street Runners’, ‘Wallflowers’ and ‘Hathaways’. In 2007 Kleypas released her first contemporary romance; ‘Sugar Daddy’, the first book in the ‘Travis’ trilogy that was concluded this year with ‘Smooth Talking Stranger’.

‘Sugar Daddy’ BLURB:

Liberty Jones fell in love with Hardy Cates when she was fourteen and three quarters and he was seventeen. However, Hardy wasn't going to let even love stand in the way of his ambition to escape the poverty of his childhood. He had left town - and Liberty broken hearted. But Liberty is also a survivor - and determined to make a better life for herself and her baby sister. Moving to the big city, she finds a job and an unlikely friend in billionaire tycoon Churchill Travis. But though Churchill's son is convinced she's nothing but a gold digger looking for a Sugar Daddy, their relationship goes deeper than most people think. But just as Liberty and her sister begin to feel settled in their new life, Hardy comes back into their lives...

I love, love, LOVE the Travis trilogy, but ‘Sugar Daddy’ is my favourite in the series. Liberty is an incredible female protagonist. We meet Liberty when she is on the cusp of womanhood and as reader’s we are there to witness the pivotal moments in her life – when she first falls in love, gets her heart broken – and the lowest point in her life, when her mother dies. Liberty suffers a lot in this book, but she also manages to retain an incredible resiliency that is inspiring and incredible. Liberty makes a lot of sacrifices in her life in order to adopt her half-sister, Carrington, after their mother’s death. The second half of the book explores Liberty’s struggles with being a single parent, and with each fresh defeat you love Liberty a little more and root for her a little harder.

Liberty is one of the best female lead’s I have read in a long time.

The other reason this novel works so well is the romance. Gage Travis is eldest son to Texan millionaire, Churchill Travis. At first Gage takes Liberty for a gold-digger, but as they get to know each other, sparks begin to fly. Kleypas is in her element with this romance. The first half of the book explores the sweet, first love between Hardy and Liberty. But it’s in the second half when focus shifts to Liberty and Gage that things really heat up. Gage is a wonderful leading man – he’s from the Mr. Darcy school of romance; a bit too uptight and confrontational in the beginning, but when he warms up he really warms up. The romance is kicked up a notch when Hardy reappears in Liberty’s life to shake things up, and both he and Gage start vying for Liberty’s affections.

“It was enough. You’re mine now. And I want you more than he ever did or ever will. You remember that while you’re getting your head straight. While he’s telling you whatever the hell it is you want to hear from him, you remember –“ Gage stopped abruptly. He wasn’t breathing well. His eyes were so hot you could have lit kindling off them. “Remember this,” he said in a guttural voice, and reached for me.

Kleypas did a fantastic job at modernizing her tried and true techniques. Kleypas often writes male characters who are reformed rakes and dashing rogues – to adapt such characters to modern times Kleypas made the wise choice of setting the ‘Travis’ trilogy in Texas – where men are still thoroughly rugged, masculine and a little bit cowboy. Her men aren’t chauvinistic, but they definitely have ideas about what it is to be a man and woman, and more importantly rules regarding ‘their’ women.

I adore this series, and I re-read all three books whenever I get an urge to read good romance. I think that’s why I love Kleypas’s books so much – they are utterly romantic. Happy-endings, sexy love scenes, dashing men… Kleypas knows her stuff and delivers every time.

This is Kleypas’s first contemporary romance, but she has promised it won’t be her last. She currently has an idea for a new series that will come out in the next couple of years.

5/5