Rainy Day Friends by Jill Shalvis (Review by Bruna Morais)
\This book is a romance “chick-lit” with a lot of drama and heartbreak.
Lanie accepts a job far away from home in order to start over after her husband passed away. During her grieving process, she finds out that he was a polygamist with many other wives besides her.
She finds a job as a temporary graphic artist in the Capriotti’s winery which she finds to be a very family-oriented business where almost every employee is a member of the Capriotti family. Cora, her boss and heart of the family, introduces Lanie to the rest of the family who make her feel welcome. They are loud and crazy and love to drink a lot of wine during lunch.
Heartbroken and still unable to trust men, she meets Mark Capriotti. He’s the character that makes you fall in love with the book. He’s a great police officer, awesome dad to the cutest little twin girls, and also had a painful love life since his wife abandoned him and the kids. You instantly start cheering for Lanie and Mark to end up together but of course there’s a lot of drama to go with their story.
The drama goes further when River appears at the Capriotti’s. She’s pregnant at just twenty-one years old and has no family or place to go, so Cora welcomes her. She’s the third main character and she has secrets that disrupt Lanie’s life.
This is a great book with exceptional character development. I fell in love with Cora for her good heart. The little twin girls and their affection for Lanie makes the story sweet. I loved Lanie’s character too; the author did such a good job of describing her grief and pain for being cheated on but at the same time her desire to be with Mark and be able to have a relationship again.