Rating: 3.25 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Sarita doesn’t drink often, but when she does, she goes all in. Waking up at 4:30 AM for her job at the bakery isn’t helping her hangover. Neither is forgetting that there is a woman on her couch that Sarita barely remembers. The woman, Maritza, is cute and confident and focused on her career as a ballroom dancer. Sarita is close to finishing grad school, but still has no idea what to do with her life after that. While her parents and brother are supportive, her sister hates everything about Sarita and the family drama is at an all time high.
Maritza has been dancing since the age of nine. She has always known she wanted to be a dancer and convinced her family to move across the country so she could dance with Nicky. The two have been partners for years, but after a failed attempt at dating, their relationship, both on the dance floor as well as off, is now toxic. Still, Maritza knows they dance well together and auditions in LA are calling. Sarita and Maritza both have jam packed schedules and little time for each other, but a relationship could lead them to all the right choices.
Certainly, Possibly, You is the follow up to Definitely, Maybe, Yours, but can be enjoyed as a stand alone. I enjoyed that first book both due to the characters and the writing style and was looking forward to being back in that world. The book opens with two characters that are smart and sassy and their initial meet up scene was quite entertaining. After that, this book dragged for me and kept spiraling downward with each secondary plotline that was introduced. The book is character driven, but not relationship driven as the focus was on the womens’ careers and family lives. I kept waiting for that spark to come back, but the storylines didn’t hold my interest.
We met Sarita in the first book and she is still the head cake decorator at the bakery Craig manages. She’s trying to finish grad school while working and now she has cute Maritza on her mind. She also has family issues, namely her sister who hates her. Sarita is close to her brother who is gay and Sarita always just thought her sister was homophobic, but it runs deeper than that as she’s particularly cruel to Sarita. The family drama becomes melodramatic and I couldn’t buy into the sister’s explanation and then what her brother had to say for himself afterward.
Maritza is fairing better at home, but her dance partner, Nicky, is another story. Nicky was the character that no one had one positive thing to say about so then it was like there was a big flashing sign over him that there would be drama with him–and there was. But it was a tired plot device that had me really just squinting at the page as it didn’t enhance the story for me. There was also a reference to same-sex marriage not being legal in all 50 states and for a new release, that should have been updated.
Mixed in here are Sarita and Maritza trying to have a relationship or maybe just find time to go out on a date. What started out as a banter filled meet up with promise dissolved into them barely having time to spend together along with intimate scenes that were routine. They didn’t spend nearly enough time together for me to buy into their ending. It read for me as if Sarita had a story and then Maritza had a story, but the two stories didn’t fit together well.
I enjoyed this author’s writing style when I was introduced to it in the previous book and I would be open to trying again. But with this one it depends on what you are looking for. If you’re looking a relationship-focused book, this one was bogged down by other storylines that read as tired. But, if you’re looking for family and career drama, then this is that book.
