Book Review: Summoning Up Love
Author: Synithia Williams
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Harlequin SE
Publish Date: April 24, 2022
Format: Paperback
★★★★★
This book is perfect for those that like: romances set in small towns, ghosts and ghost hunting, or breakfast foods.
You might not like this book if you aren’t into: stories with the "unexplained" or paranormal activity.
Favorite Line: "I never asked you to change for me. I don’t want you to change. I love you for the person you are, not for someone I imagine you to be." ~ Vanessa
The Book
A fraud?
Or the find of her lifetime?
Vanessa Steele retreats to her grandmother’s beach house to heal after she loses her job and her fiancé. When she finds that Grandma’s enlisted hunky Dion Livingston and his brothers to investigate suspicious paranormal activity, the intrepid reporter’s skeptical of their motives. But her own investigation discovers that Dion’s the real deal. And any supernatural energy? Pales compared to the electricity that erupts when the two of them are together…
The Review
I remember when this cover was revealed on Twitter earlier this year, I immediately texted a link to Dory with an ALL CAPS, “I WANT THIS NOW. OMG.” There might have been a ton of inappropriate follow-up texts about this white henley, but I digress…
Y’all, this book was EVERYTHING we thought it was going to be.
It’s not a super long read, clocking in at 224 pages, but don’t let that shorter length fool you. This story grabs you from the first page and is chock full of romance, mystery, community, and GHOSTS!
We meet Vanessa and Dion, our two leads, at a time when they are both questioning themselves and the way other people view them. Vanessa, who lost her job at a news station because her former GM didn’t think she was “serious” enough to tackle hard-edge news stories, is ready for people to view her as more than a pretty face. Dion has had to make sacrifices to keep him and his two brothers together after both their parents died, including giving up a college scholarship. He’s never once regretted the choices he’s made to keep his family together, in fact, he’s pretty comfortable with where he’s at in life, but his brothers keep pushing him to do more, leaving him feeling like he’s not enough.
I loved the way Synithia balanced their inner conflicts with their budding relationship, giving us a chance to watch these two find confidence not only in themselves but with each other. They don’t start out as friends, as Vanessa is super suspicious of Dion (and his brothers) and their motive for helping out her Grandmother, but they find a way to make it work relatively quickly. Being trapped in Dion’s truck, in the rain, after escaping a haunted house, may or may not ::ahem:: help the situation. ::waggles eyebrows:: Their romance unfolds naturally and with a hint of pining on Dion’s side, which y’all, anytime a book has someone pining, I’m there. Pining and Groveling are my two favorite songs.
Throw in some low-stakes paranormal activity, a sweet ending to her Grandmother’s ghost mystery (I cried, lol), and a well-developed community, ripe for future books, and y’all, this is one fun read. Enjoy this on a rainy weekend when you want to be cozied up inside. But be prepared. You will need lots of breakfast foods at the ready when you read this book. Glorious amounts of breakfast foods are detailed throughout and they will leave you hungry.
The Author
Synithia Williams has loved romance novels since reading her first one at the age of 13. It was only natural she would begin penning her own soon after. It wasn’t until 2010 that she began to actively pursue her dream of becoming a published author. She completed her first novel, You Can’t Plan Love, in the fall of 2010 and sold it to Crimson Romance in 2012.
Her novel Making it Real was a USA Today Happily Ever After blog 2015 Must Read Romance and A Malibu Kind of Romance a 2017 RITA finalist. Synithia has also written two books under the pseudonym Nita Brooks.
When she isn’t writing, she works on water quality issues for local government while balancing the needs of her husband and two sons.