Book Review: ‘Freshly Brewed’ by Pamela Ford

Award-winning author of contemporary and historical romance Pamela Ford brings us the irrepressible Breanna Mitchell who is on her way to a relaxing vacation at the ocean with the hopes of getting over a recent breakup. A tropical storm and a chance encounter deliver a great opportunity that comes with a catch. Breanna and her friends can stay in a gorgeous, three-story oceanfront mansion, but only if she pretends to be the girlfriend of the owner’s grandson, Ethan. He won’t be there and they need a place to stay, so why not?

Of course, as can be expected, Ethan unexpectedly arrives, but Breanna is suddenly handed everything she could ever want—or is it?
More believable than its predecessor, Ford’s “Fresh Brewed” brings back the characters from “Overeasy” with a small switch in roles. This time the story focuses on Breanna (or Bree) while Allie takes a back seat to the action.

Bree’s story is quite different and a little more believable than Allie’s, which makes this series all the more readable—nothing like an obvious copy-paste to discourage me from reading the second book in a series! But not only the story is different, the main character is also quite different, although she and Allie share one major thing in common that kept both their stories going: the ability to make the wrong decision again and again.

A cute, fun, well-written, and engaging quick read, Bree’s story is that of a series of unfortunate decisions, not a series of unfortunate events like Allie’s was. Although I chuckled my way through the book, I have to admit that I also rolled my eyes a few times and groaned many other times as well. I can’t help but wonder: do people like this actually exist?

There are two complaints I have, but they are not major enough for me to not recommend this book. The first is the lack of deep enough realisation like Allie had; long time readers of my blog know how I like some sort of deeper level of understanding to emerge from any book that I read. The second complaint is that although we get to meet a fun new character who will be featured in a future book, we don’t get to see Allie or Megan, Bree’s sidekicks who were also present in the first book featuring Allie’s adventure, as much as I’d like to. But, again, these are minor quibbles that don’t take much away from the reading experience.