Sweet Talkin' Lover: A Girls Trip Novel

The premise for this one is simple, there are 4 women who met at UVA, and have maintained their relationship and support network in the intervening years. The group of women (of whom we only got small snapshots) are wonderfully diverse and their relationships are complex, and while there seem to be more ‘pairing off’ in terms of who goes to whom first for support, I think that by the end of the series, they will all have developed into the sort of friend group that everyone should aspire to. But, I digress. This is ultimately Caila’s story, and one that manages to touch on several deeper issues that go above and beyond her ‘assignment’ from work to the small Virginia community to evaluate a sub-contractor’s factory operations. Caila has always felt like an outsider, from being different (decidedly) to from her mother, to the other kids at the small town she was moved to as a younger teen, through her working life – always needing to put career first and never rely on anyone, having to be ‘better than everyone else’ to gain that promotion. Wyatt is the golden son of the town’s first family, now he’s the mayor and managed to separate himself somewhat from family expectations, but there are plans for him to marry the “right sort of girl” and become governor. While Wyatt manages to keep himself unattached, and find time to pursue his own interests, the reaction that he has to Caila is far beyond his keeping the factory in business and keeping a third of the town employed. There was so much going on here – the connection between Wyatt and Caila was suspiciously viewed by everyone – from the interracial aspect to the fact that she was an ‘enemy’ in their town. Her unresolved grief over her grandfather’s death, and her own confusion about the attraction to Wyatt, the charm of the town and it’s people (with a few exceptions) and her determination to separate her ‘personal’ reactions from the very unemotional report and work she has to do for the business to keep the trajectory of her career on the path she has designated manages to add a TON of angst and tension to the story. From Wyatt’s secrets, to her own, the changes in them both, all for the better are wonderful and make this story one to keep. A layered set of issues, all handled with grace and the electric connection between Wyatt and Caila made this hard to put down and leaves me anxious for the next book….. I received an eArc copy of the title from the publisher via Edelweiss for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.