This Love of Mine

A Mirror Lake Novel

by Miranda Liasson

Bridal shop owner Meg Halloran spends her days making other women’s wedding dreams come true—and her nights dreaming of her childhood crush, hometown heartthrob Dr. Benjamin Rushford. After a lifetime of wearing her heart on her sleeve, she’s done waiting. Meg’s ready to find love, with or without him. Moving on feels right—until Ben pops an unexpected question.

To win the open ER position in Mirror Lake, Ben has to convince the board that he’s settled and ready to put down roots. His latest stroke of genius? Asking Meg, the local good girl, to be his pretend girlfriend. With her by his side, he’s a shoo-in for the job. But he’s in over his head because, as much as he tries to deny it, Meg tempts him. And if she learns the truth about a secret that has shadowed and shaped his life, will she ever be able to forgive him?

I didn’t read This Thing Called Love, the first of the Mirror Lake books, but I don’t think it made that much of a difference because with This Love of Mine we focus on Ben and Meg and their pretend relationship.  Of course, like any good romance, it doesn’t stay pretend for very long and Liasson makes sure that it is a lot of fun getting to their HEA.

My heart goes out to these two for a lot of reasons.  The opening with the elevator, and all of the humorous embarrassment that goes with it, sets the mood for the rest of the book and I totally feel for Meg as she tries to make herself as invisible as possible so Ben doesn’t realize she’s there.  She’s been living with a crush on him for years and she’s finally decided to give it up … when she’s guilted into a fake relationship with him.  But it’s just for one night, right?  Then she can go back to moving on … yeah, that worked.

Ben’s been carrying around a lot of guilt since Patrick, his best friend and Meg’s brother, died.  So many of his decisions have been because of Patrick, including ignoring his attraction to Meg.  Except now that he’s pretending to be in a relationship with her, ignoring her pull on him becomes so very difficult.  I really like how his feelings, both for Meg and about Patrick’s death, get resolved.  It is handled with care and all of it felt realistic to me.

**Begin Spoiler**  The HEA ending, though, does feel a little rushed to me.  I feel like the wedding was forced a little and that it could have been part of a future story (this is part of a series).  I get that it is Ben’s way of making things up to Meg after he screws up yet again, but maybe he could have made about half of his gesture with the same impact. **End Spoiler**

Overall though I am very pleased.  The characters are believable & interesting and the story is sweet & emotion-packed.  I feel like I really knew them when I got to the last word and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.

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