Overall Grade: B
Tropes: second chances; pro baseball MMC; artist FMC; small town romance; opposites attract
The Echo of Regret is the first book I’ve read from Jillian Liota. Something about the blurb attracted me to this story, even though it’s the final book of her Cedar Point series and I hadn’t read the earlier books of the series. With all of that, I was pleasantly surprised that I chose well with this story. Often when you read a story in a series, you feel as though you missed out on a bigger sense of the story. I never felt this way reading The Echo of Regret. Did it pique my curiosity for the other stories? Of course, but I also didn’t feel compelled to pick them up immediately to read them.
Bishop and Gabi have different intensities throughout the book. At first, Bishop reads as almost indifferent to the reason for their break-up. It is underplayed in contrast to Gabi’s disdain for him. Even more, Liota ameliorates this pretty quickly which is one of my criticisms of this book. Bishop moves from indifference to intense interest in reconciling. At 61%, Bishop and Gabi are already moving towards reconciliation, and I thought they needed more discussion of the past before doing this (my second criticism). I’m certain Liota didn’t want her readers to wait too long for it, given Gabi tended to cycle through her feelings for Bishop quite a bit (almost repetitively – my third criticism). Still, Liota remedies it through Gabi and Bishop moving forward. Bishop recognizes that Gabi will never be more important than baseball, the mindset of a man four years older and wiser.
Jillian Liota’s The Echo of Regret reminded me of Laura Pavlov, Devney Perry, and that ilk. It’s sweet and spicy small-town romance that uplifts after putting you through a juggernaut of emotions first. If this is your jam, you should grab this one!
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 