Review: Jill Shalvis's MY KIND OF WONDERFUL.

​I received a complimentary copy of this book from Forever Pub & Grand Central Pub but all opinions provided are my own.
 
Cancer maybe isn’t a topic that you associate with a romance novel. But many of us (most of us?) have been indirectly or directly affected by it, and romance novels don’t shy away from the tough topics. That’s part of what I love about them: you get the swoons and the HEA (both of which can be real in my experience) and you get the bits of life that are first obstacles/challenges/moments of doubt and that become turning points/wakeup calls/reminders that we can do this thing.
 
Bailey Moore of My Kind of Wonderful has been cancer-free for three months after battling Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma for ten years. She’s determined to really embrace this new life, no matter how much the people who care about her want to protect her. Bailey’s got a List, a bucket list of sorts (only, she came up with it after she was cancer-free), and she decides that painting a family mural pro bono on the wall at a ski resort goes on it.
 
Hudson Kincaid, the head of Ski Patrol at Cedar Ridge, doesn’t want Bailey to create the mural. The last thing that he wants is to see his twin brother Jacob on it and be reminded of the horrible fight they had ten years ago…the last time he saw his twin. His mom’s also suffering dementia, the resort’s in trouble, and he’s overworked. He’s got a lot on his plate.
 
But Bailey’s determined…and beautiful, sensitive, and a spreader of joy, and she starts chipping away at Hudson even as she encourages him to think about their relationship as a “one night stand” kinda thing (even when it’s obviously far from that in nearly every possible way). Can they find their way to something more serious or can Hudson handle one more relationship/responsibility/attachment on his plate?
 
As Night Owl Reviews notes on the book’s blurb, this book “packs a big walloping emotional punch.” It’s not a lighthearted read, even though it’s really funny at times and the heroine happens to be a straight-up beaut of a person, lighting everything up. The ending doesn’t solve all the hero and heroine’s problems, though it’s definitely a HEA.
 
What it is is a wonderful book.
 
Shalvis’s contemporary books are consistently great—sexy, warm, and with fantastic character ensembles who pop in and out of later books—but My Kind of Wonderful is another kind of special. A warm, lovely story with an irrepressible heroine, a guilt-ridden and family-centered hero, and sexytimes crackling off the page, it’s a stand-out for me, the kind of romance that you hold close.
 
4.5 out of 5 stars.