What did I think of my first Christina Lauren book? Find out below in my review of Twice in a Blue Moon! If you love romantic stories, check out my Rom-Com-a-Thon page – link is below!
Twice in A Blue Moon by Christina Lauren
Published on October 22, 2019 by Gallery Books. Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review. Links are affiliate links and I may receive a small percentage of qualifying purchases – please see more details here!
Blurb adapted from Goodreads, edited for spoilers: Sam Brandis was Tate Jones’s first: Her first love. Her first everything. Including her first heartbreak. During a whirlwind two-week vacation abroad, Sam and Tate fell for each other in only the way that first loves do. Sam was the first, and only, person to whom Tate—the long-lost daughter of one of the world’s biggest film stars—ever revealed her true identity. But then Sam unexpectedly vanishes. Years later, Tate, now an up-and-coming actress, only thinks about her first love every once in a blue moon. When she steps onto the set of her first big break, he’s the last person she expects to see. Yet here Sam is, the same charming, confident man she knew, but even more alluring than she remembered. Tate must ask herself whether “once in a lifetime” can come around twice.
Review of Twice in a Blue Moon
I’d never read a Christina Lauren book before and I’m not sure how typical this was, but this was a second-chance-at-love romance that felt a bit like a hybrid YA/romance book and was chock full of tropes: love with a celebrity, love on holiday, second chance at love, celebrity in disguise, forbidden love….
The story begins as teenage Tate and Sam meet in London – she’s the daughter of a famous film star, but has a difficult relationship with her father and been living with her mom under a different last name in a small town. Sam is also on holiday and staying at the same London hotel. When these two meet, they fall hard for each other, and Tate decides to trust Sam with her secret. But then he abruptly disappears, breaking her heart, and reporters show up, revealing her identity. Years later, Tate is an actress in her first starring film role when she sees someone on set who looks startlingly familiar. Could it be Sam, was he the one who betrayed her, and can she trust him a second time?
In a way this felt like two separate stories: teenage Sam and Tate and their drama, and adult Sam and Tate. Maybe I’ve been reading YA too long, but I preferred the first half and I’m trying to figure out why.
I liked all the themes and tropes in here – some of my favorites! I love second chance at love stories. And I liked the family aspects of the story – Tate’s relationship with her father, her mother and her grandmother. But I also felt like there was something about the second half of the story that didn’t quite work as well for me as the first half. I felt like Tate always had the stronger half of the power dynamic (in part one, she’s the daughter of the famous actor, and in part two, she’s suddenly the up-and-coming young actress now working with her famous father.) She always felt sort of perfect and untouchable to me. Also, the second pat of the book spent a long time having Tate and Sam avoid each other (and a long time of Sam insisting that he did try to warn Tate that he’d be on set) and I felt the magic of their romance in the first part of the story was never quite reproduced in the second.
But there was also a lot here to like, and I will definitely try more Christina Lauren books!
Have you read this, or do you have other Christina Lauren books to recommend? Tell me in comments!
I wouldn’t exactly call this a rom com, but if you love romantic stories, please be sure to check out my Rom-Com-a-Thon page, with many more reviews!
Such an interesting concept. I read a lot of YA too, so I wonder if I’d prefer that half of the book—it would be interesting to see if that’s a trend among YA readers.
I do read adult books and I do really love second chance at love stories. I think I just felt that the romance was less well developed in the second part. A LONG time (14 years?) has passed and they’re completely different people, and that doesn’t seem to really be addressed. The story spends a lot of time on her anger toward him and, imo, not enough on them falling back in love.
I won’t lie. I adored the first 35% of the book, because CLo did a magnificent job capturing all those gooey emotions related to first love. I really loved those nights they spent in the grass together. I, overall, enjoyed this book. Tate was a very complicated character. She was carrying around a lot of baggage and she needed to work through what happened with Sam, because she was stuck. I thought the authors did a good job with that. CLo including a whole storyline about undue hate on an interracial couple, while using the term “Indian summer” repeatedly, was a bit of a mixed message for me, but I am trying to let that go.
Yeah, I agree that the “young love” part was really nice but the “stuck” part was a little too long for me and as a result, I though the rekindling of their romance got short changed. I mean they only spent a week together 14 years ago and I felt the relationship needed to be rebuilt more.
Their books are always hit or miss for me and I skipped this one.
I hadn’t noticed before but now that you mentioned it – it’s the 2nd 1/2 that usually doesn’t work. In The Unhoneymooners – there was this excellent rom-com build up then something fairly serious and the second half skirted around it all with a light hearted rom com ending.
And same with My Favorite Half-Night Stand (although I had several issues with that one.
But then I adored Josh & Hazel so I just try to read a lot of reviews first for their books :=)
Karen @ For What It’s worth
That’s interesting about the half and half format. I do think when books are structured that way it’s likely that you’ll like one half more the other. I recently read another book with the same format and again I strongly preferred one half to the other.
Oh man. This is your first Christina Lauren novel? I’ve loved this duo forever! Twice in a Blue Moon is in my wishlist and can’t wait to read it. I love second chance romance, but I heard this was not one of their best. Oh well, you can’t win them all. 😉