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Welcome to our BIG SUMMER ENERGY!  We already shared here that we’re planning to read our best lives this summer, but today’s title feels like it might be all of my favorite things in one book, and it’s not even out until Tuesday, June 21!  Yes readers, that is a glowing recommendation for Maggie Moves On by Lucy Score right out of the gates thanks to the ARC provided by Forever, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing with the help of NetGalley (all opinions are our own)!  Let’s back up a smidge first.  If your memory is like mine, you may not remember this is actually our second Score title to recommend, as The Price of Scandal was one of our February 2020 reviews.  While Score has independently published more than 30 books, Maggie Moves On is her first title offered by a traditional publisher (aka not That’s What She Said Publishing operated by Mr. Lucy himself, so yes, that’s the vibe here).  Lucy resides in Pennsylvania with Mr. Lucy (which is how she refers to him on the internets and in her acknowledgements) and their adorable cat, Cleo.  

As Maggie Moves On opens, Maggie, a house flipper who capitalizes on her craft by sharing the stories of her homes with her nearly 1M YouTube subscribers, is moving on to a new project.  She’s just finished an amazing beach house and is now in Western Idaho to rehab a dilapidated showplace that’s over a century old.  Enter Silas, the owner of a local landscaping business Maggie’s business partner called for a scope of work and price estimate.  I don’t want to say more about the plot other than this is a steamy, open door romance full of colorful language, snark, and a bit of a mystery.  

Maggie Moves On is another example of what I’ve loved about Score’s other books that I’ve read, the main characters are layered and complex, slowly revealed as the story unfolds and we meet more of their supporting cast and dig deep into the web of relationships.  She writes witty dialogue, real struggles, and pulls the reader into the world of the book, going so far as to dedicate this title to Binge Readers Anonymous – her Facebook Group of fans (yes, we’re both members).  So, yes, I loved reading this FIVE STAR REVIEWED book.  It has great writing, two complex leads, and the rehabbing of a fantastic old home – which I warned my Realtor was bad news bears for me and her – and I *may* have sent her a listing for a rehabbed home of a similar age (and a second during this writing when I looked up the age of the first).  It was also full of big feelings for me because of some of the character development – like you know when you’re crying reading a book because of how seen you feel even though it’s not a particularly tear-jerky sort of scene you’re reading?  Just me?  That’s fine, the point is here are big feels on both the individual and the couple level, and the only thing that makes me sad about this book is that it’s wrapped up with a fairly sizeable bow at the end, leading me to think we’re not likely to get a series spinning off of Maggie Moves On.  If this sounds like a fun read, go preorder or recommend it to your library today!

What’s a book that made you feel seen in unexpected ways?

~Nikki 

Hello, my name is Ashley and I’m Nikki’s Realtor. The things she says about her sending me old houses listed on the interwebz is true. It’s also true I do the same thing to her and we drool and dream and talk about how maybe we should just go into the house flipping business together… and then we realize that’s more capital and time intensive than we can handle right now and gently steer our conversations back to books, where they should stay…for now. You would be hard-pressed to find a real estate agent who has never flipped a house, listed a flipped house for an investor, or represented a buyer who purchased a flipped house. Plus, who doesn’t love a good house flipping show where someone else has to deal with the headache and work and you still feel like you were part of the end result? Well, that’s exactly what Maggie’s YouTube show does for her subscribers.

Now, let me back up a little bit…Maggie Nichols is not the first home renovations specialist that Nikki and I have experienced through the writing of Ms. Lucy Score. In the Bootleg Springs Series co-written by Claire Kingsley, Scarlett Bodine is a contractor, owner, and property manager of lakeside vacation rentals in her tiny West Virginia hometown. I’d call that being a real estate investor with hands-on experience. And then, we have brother and sister duo Gannon and Cat King in the books Mr. Fixer Upper and The Christmas Fix, respectively. Chances are high in another of her 30+ books, she uses real estate as a career path. I’ll find out first hand eventually, as I do intend to read Ms. Score’s entire backlist. I have communicated to Nikki a theory that Lucy and Mr. Lucy possibly do some real estate investing in this manner and so it’s easy for her to write about it. I could be wrong, but I could also be right!

Nikki mentioned above the snark level in Maggie Moves On, and I am especially appreciative of the banter between Maggie and her business partner, Dean. The first highlight I have in the entire book is in chapter one:

“It was originally built by Aaron Campbell for his wife, Ava, allegedly a romantic at heart,” she said, warming to her topic.

“Oh goodie. A lecture.”

“Mr. Campbell’s family owned jewelry stores and a timber operation in the area.”

“Must have been a lot of money in murdering trees,” Dean mused as he tested the first step leading to the porch.

“Actually, Campbell’s money came from the fifteen western novels he wrote.”

He groaned. “I hate it when houses have backstories. It makes you spend more.”

I just love this, because, as you know, darling readers, we do call the items on our bookshelves “deadtree books.” So, there certainly was money in murdering trees for the Campbell’s. My favorite parts of Maggie’s journey in Kinship, Idaho, however, is how she comes to find family while she’s renovating the Campbell’s house and researching their story to bring provenance to the house for the town. Wallace is a grandfatherly figure Maggie meets when he shows up at the house complaining about people destroying perfectly good homes. He’s just trying to protect the Campbell’s legacy to the town as he was an employee at the house when it was an actual museum about the family. The way Maggie and Wallace express their grumpiness is endearing for the readers and frustrating to Silas, Dean, and the rest of their Kinship family. It makes for amazing snarky banter, too!

Oh, dear readers, did you have any other expectation than that Maggie Moves On would be a double FIVE STAR REVIEWED book? Especially because it’s about an old house and we love them?! We didn’t even talk about how it’s a grumpy and sunshine couple, but it’s gender swapped, because Maggie is the cynical, anti-relationship grump and Silas is all-in on her being his future wife from the first moment he sees her. Plus, we’re not saying anything about the underlying mystery that is slowly revealed during the renovations, and that mystery is my jam. Go. Read. This. Book. I’m thinking about buying copies for my mastermind ladies as gifts during our real estate conference next week. And one for my shelf, too!

~Ashley

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