The Ripple Effect

Oh, the drama! And the SETTING!!!This book is about Stellar and Lyle "McHuge." Now Stellar has been burned before and prefers her life to be as independent as possible. However, she finds a special connection with the too-nice-for-his-own-good McHuge. They end up back together as they work as co-leaders for an outdoor relationship retreat.At first, (as is obviously seen in my dates read) I was slow getting into this. I think the reason why was a combination of the start of a reading slump, trying to hit quite a few bookish deadlines, and a bit too much prose in the first chapters. Don't get me wrong, once I got used to the writing style, I liked it much more, but I still felt slowed down by some of the unnecessarily long descriptions. Maggie, though, certainly hooked me though. The setting was beautiful, the drama was juicy, and the final chapter was heartwarming!!! I really enjoyed these characters (although some of the descriptions of McHuge were...let's say...unrealistic or maybe heavy handed) I thought the character arcs, and their love was great!

Stellar Byrd, a burned-out ER doc, takes a gig as a camp medic at a weirdly emotional canoeing/relationship therapy camp just to stay in her favorite (but expensive) mountain town. Things get awkward fast when she’s forced into a fake engagement with the camp’s overly cheerful founder—who also happens to be her ex-hookup. Between sing-alongs, sabotage, and unexpected sparks, this summer might be just what the doctor needed.This was such a cute read, and I adored McHuge and his emotional maturity and vulnerability. He was the perfect sunshine to Stellar's grumpy. Stellar's emotional growth throughout this book was done so well, and Maggie North did an excellent job at letting us see inside the character's heads. This made the characters so real and relatable to the readers and that can be hard to do, especially when including the amount of banter and humor that this book did.I really enjoyed the camp setting of this book, and how well that played into the character's growth and the plot. I expected this to be another easy going romance book, and it was in a lot of ways, but there were also so many complexities that added to the depth of the story- and I loved that. This book was healing in a way, and I want to go through life with the attitude of McHuge. Overall, highly recommend this super cute story!Rating: 4/5Spice: 2/5Tropes:Cinnamon Roll MMCGrumpy/SunshineOne TentFake EngagementOne Night StandSelf HealingMarriage CounsellingFound Family

This was a fun second chance romance. I enjoyed the setting a lot. I hadn’t read anything that took place at a retreat like this so it was nice to be immersed in a new and different setting.This book is about a grumpy burnt out physician and a sunshine psychologist. They have a fake engagement in order to save his whitewater/relationship therapy start-up venture.I thought that the characters had interesting storylines and were well fleshed out. I liked seeing Stellar and McHuge overcome the awkwardness between them and how the slow burn romance developed throughout the story.Read this if you like:🏞️ Grumpy/sunshine🏞️ Fake engagement🏞️ Forced proximity🏞️ Workplace romance🏞️ One tent

Rating: 4.5 /5This is a book that will give you flashbacks to summer camp, the smell of the woods and the sound of the river, along with the smell of campfire. I loved the first book that Maggie wrote, and this is book two in the series, but rest assured that these can be read as standalone and you will still be able to see the intertwining of the characters and their stories in it.In this book you will meet Stellar, she is a little lost with what to do in life now that she isn’t working as an ER doctor after the pandemic. She is burnt out with life, the stresses, the fears and having to carry the weight of everyone else. She lands a job at The Love Boat, as the trauma camp doctor. She isn’t a feely touchy person, she doesn’t like the fact that her boss is the sweetest, kindest and can we talk about how sexy he is too. Oh, oh, and I can’t forget that they met at a concert before and had some fun but afterwards nothing. Lyle is a great boss, he cares about his job, his couples and his employees, he has the patience of a saint but there is so much more to him than you would ever know. This is a character driven plot, and I loved every moment of it. You will see a lot of tropes and topics that were handled with care: fake engagement, grumpy vs sunshine (her/him), forced proximity, found family, learning to love and to forget and understanding oneself.I loved that these characters didn’t just have insta love but instead a slow burn that felt real. You will see how these characters start to learn to trust, lean on and help each other out. You will see how love isn’t just about all the lovey-dovey romance but instead learning to lean on people who are in your corner. Please just know that when you read any of Maggie North’s books you will find so much more than just the plots in her stories. I loved all the topics and the characters in this book and I can’t wait to see what is next for Maggie.I want to thank NetGalley and SMP for the opportunity to review this book.

I've seen a lot of folks talk about how they are tired of the same occupations and locations in romance books. If you're one of those people, I think it is time to check Maggie North out. I snagged an early copy of both of her books, and they are definitely interesting premises. Like her first book, Rules for Second Chances, this one takes us to small town Canada. This one features a burnt out former ER doctor (Stellar) and a super chill psychologist (Lyle).The two are brought together to launch The Love Boat, a whitewater canoeing relationship retreat (tell me that's not original). Only one problem, they had a one night stand a year ago, one that both can't forget about.I thought the start of the book was a little slow and also didn't have enough relationship building in it to make me buy their close connection. That turned around in the second half of the book, when they start to actually have conversations that push them past their comfort zones. I still think the relationship at the core of the book develops quite fast, but I at least started to feel some chemistry between the two.The "plot twist" is pretty predictable, but that makes it a low anxiety read.