Reviewed by PizzyGirl
TITLE: Twice in a Lifetime
AUTHOR: Jodie Griffin
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 202 pages
RELEASE DATE: January 22, 2018
BLURB:
When widow Talia Wasserman applies for a job with the local police department, she’s shocked to discover she’ll be working for Lieutenant Eve Poe, an officer she’d met—and been attracted to—during a long-ago citizen’s police academy workshop. Fifteen years later, the spark is still there, and no one’s currently in Talia’s life or in her bed. But there’s just one teeny, tiny problem. Eve is her boss, so she’s completely off-limits.
Eve feels a sizzling connection with Talia from the very first, but Talia works for her, and that’s just a bad idea. Besides, Eve needs to focus on the person sending disturbing emails to her office, and not on the woman who quickly makes herself invaluable to the department. It’s too bad her heart doesn’t agree with her.
Then Eve is badly injured in the line of duty, and Talia’s worst fears are realized. She may lose her chance at happiness with the woman she’s come to love, and she can’t survive that kind of loss twice in a lifetime.
REVIEW:
I would characterize this book as a slow and steady relationship centric story. There was little character development or plot outside of these two women learning about each other and growing into love.
I first want to start by saying I loved the diversity. There was so much representation of POCs and various religious backgrounds that was just treated as normal and that was fantastic. It was a truer representation of the mix of Americans than we normally see in LGBT romance and I really loved that it felt so natural.
I also liked that both women were mature and had a bit of depth to them that is often not seen with younger MC who have not had as many life experiences. Though sometimes they did feel a bit immature but I think that is also natural.
I enjoyed the relationship development and that it was an older woman having her first time with another woman. Gives hope to those of us still not ready to take that step because of external influences. This relationship moved very fast but as the MCs themselves said, they were old enough to know what they wanted and go for it without all the games that usually come with young relationships. These women meshed well and moved forward easily together. They had ups and downs that gave the relationship a more realistic feel.
The writing was easy to read but felt immature. Like the author writes as she speaks rather than as a writer with many novels under her belt. It wasn’t bad, it just felt awkward sometimes. The structure was very tell not show with lots of conversations that felt forced to give the perfect information at the perfect time. Maybe that’s my issue more than the way it was written. This felt too “set up” to be exactly what the author needed. And often I felt like I missed key things that would have allowed me to understand the huge emotional jumps. Sometimes I just didn’t understand why the characters felt so much for one another and that can be attributed to the forced feel and the off page development that happened.
Finally, while this story was a good, steady read about a developing relationship, I never felt a burning desire to keep reading. I had no issue reading a chapter here and there until I was done. From the blurb, I expected more focus on police work and the disturbing emails, but that was almost an afterthought and I was a bit let down. But overall, I felt this was enjoyable but was never truly engaging for me.
RATING: 
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