In Melissa Foster's latest installment to her contemporary romance series, Love in Bloom: Seaside Summers, friends Jenna Ward and Pete Lacroux are forced to face tough decisions about their lives, their families and each other as they both realize living life means choosing to live it, not waiting for it to start.

Jenna, is one of a set of friends who spend their summers in the beach community of Seaside, a small community outside Wellfleet, Massachusetts. As Jenna's friends have found love, the group has grown and evolved. Jenna's life, however, is stuck. For years she has been in love with fellow group member and friend, Pete. However, Jenna's brain turns to mush and she becomes so shy when Pete is around that she can't tell him how she feels. Pete on the other hand, believing Jenna to be to quiet and reserved has ignored his growing feelings for her, not willing to risk her friendship to find out if his attraction is real.

As they watch life grow and change around them, both Jenna and Pete find themselves at a crossroads. Jenna, no longer satisfied with pining quietly for the `not-making-a-move-Pete' decides to move on and put her feelings behind her. She wants the love and affection she sees her best friends experiencing and decides if she can't have that with Pete, she'll find it with someone else. Adding to her struggle is her mother, who in an effort to move on after a mid-life divorce, has rediscovered the joys of youth. Jenna is caught in the middle of her newly-engaged father and her acting-out mother making her doubt that `happily ever after' even exists. Is Jenna's choice to let Pete go and create distance from her mother progress forward or will it only isolate her further?

Handsome business-owner Pete, who is struggling with caring for an alcoholic father, also longs for affection and companionship and decides to find it.....with a puppy. However, when Pete witnesses Jenna take her first confident steps toward her new life and, more importantly, away from him he sees her in a new light. When the shy, muted wallflower is replaced by a vibrant and sexy woman he finally admits to himself that she stole his heart years ago. It goes against Pete's alpha instincts and protective nature to just let life happen around him. He must now make the choice between allowing his father's illness to continue to rule his own life and fighting for the woman he knows he can't let go.

Foster continues the hot and steamy tradition of the Love in Bloom franchise with Seaside Summers. We are drawn back in to the community of Wellfleet with festivals, book sales and lazy days at the beach. Jenna's and Pete's struggles with the roles they need to play in each of their parents' lives are realistic and well developed. Foster also excels at giving us a wonderfully written glimpse at how two people choose to deal with devastating loss in their lives and how those choices affect those that they love most. As Jenna's mom and Pete's dad realize the sacrifices their children are making, both must decide what changes they must make not only for their children, but for their own happiness.

Series fans will be thrilled to get a little Braden action with a cameo visit from members of the Braden family. For fans of Foster, there is even better news when it is revealed that Pete has brothers and a sister. Yay! More Love in Bloom spin offs!

Seaside Hearts by Melissa Foster

Get it! Read it! Love it!

I am completely enamored with Melissa Foster's Seaside Summers series and Seaside Hearts was another fantastic book! I couldn't read this fast enough and already I can't wait to read the next book in the series. I loved the connection between Jenna and Pete and could feel the sizzle between them through my Kindle. I really enjoyed getting to know Jenna more and seeing her quirks such as being super organized and collecting rocks. The seaside setting was perfect and I could smell the salt air, hear the ocean waves and seagulls, and picture the beautiful scenes through the writing. Melissa Foster writes in such a way that makes the characters pop off the pages and seem as though they are truly human beings. I felt like I could easily be friends with Jenna, Bella, Amy,and Leanna and would have fun hanging out at a bonfire with the rest of the group. Besides being a beautifully-written love story, there is also some family drama which made the book that much more powerful. I was sad to see this book end but excited to start the next one in the series. Now that I've started reading Melissa Foster's books, I will be reading as many as I can! I highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys wonderfully-written contemporary romance novels with some drama added into them. She has become one of my favorite authors!

Most fun books since... Forever! I have personally experienced the fun crazy girlfriends that are in these books. They may be fictional but they are also wonderfully close to life at it heights and depths, all wrapped up in the kind of friendships some people only dream of having. I will say here that if you want friends like that be a friend like that.
These books make me laugh out loud and cry like a baby. I even read the more hilarious parts to my husband. Our story is like one of these books and we have been married for 27 years. Life is sometimes much like fiction.

Jenna & Pete have known each other for several years. Jenna summers at the beach & Pete does repairs & takes care of the pool at her complex. He agreed to the job when he was just starting out & has really outgrown the job but keeps it so he can see Jenna. The chemistry between them is intense but he's afraid he'll scare her off & be too intense for her. He just can't stand to see her with anyone else. She seems to be aggressive with other men so why is she shy & quiet with him? Could she really handle him? Could they have a relationship?

Jenna has been lusting over Pete forever. Her attraction is so intense she goes mute or stumbles over her words with him. He doesn't act like he's interested so she decides this year she's over him. No more pining for him. She starts going out with Chris but there's no zing. However with Pete, wowsa!

"When I was clutching him for dear life, buck naked..." She drew in a deep breath. "I didn't feel a zing." Bella was putting a chunk of cookie dough in her mouth, and she stopped with her hand in the air. "What?" "It was more of a ZING, POW, BANG!"

This story has it all! Friendship, attraction, jealousy, love, humor, sarcasm.... I could go on & on! Ms. Foster has a knack for writing series books that are good as a stand alone but are fantastic when read as the series with the added insights garnered from the other books. The girls are supportive of each other no matter what. The men learn to get along with the girls & their significant others because the men aren't coming between them. I loved the detail & humor put into the relationship between Jenna & Pete. I could see a lot of the relationship between my fiancé & I in this one. Jenna is not a stick thin model but has a curvy size. Instead of automatically having her character be a total futz, Ms. Foster has her being OCD which goes against stereotypes. This was another good read in a great series!