Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: How to Catch a Happy Ever After
SERIES: Chester Falls Book 7
AUTHOR: Ana Ashley
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 280 pages
RELEASE DATE: December 20, 2021
BLURB:
You are hereby invited to the wedding of the century.
Yes, you got it, Tom and Wren are getting married this Christmas.
Drama.
Sparkles.
Well intentioned, but meddling friends.
Surprise pregnancies.
This wedding is set to have it all, including a brand new couple who is well overdue for their Happy Ever After.
How to Catch a Happy Ever After is the final book in the Chester Falls series. Told from multiple points of view, this book is not a standalone, but better enjoyed after previous books in the series.
REVIEW:
How to Catch a Happy Ever After is the seventh and final book in Ana Ashley’s Chester Falls series. The eight previous books (six full-length novels and two novellas, How to Catch a Bookworm and How to Catch the Boss) all feature a charming small-town romance between two endearing men, usually in an unexpected pairing. Those eight couples form an eclectic, beautiful found-family that is the centerpiece of How to Catch a Happy Ever After. It’s a diverse group including royalty (Kris from How to Catch a Prince), macho bodyguards (like James from How to Catch a Bodyguard and Ryan from How to Catch the Boss), a veterinarian (Micah from How to Catch a Vet), and lots of colorful, super-creative types like a famous romance writer (Aiden from How to Catch a Biker), an interior decorator (Tristan from How to Catch a Bookworm), an artist (Charlie from How to Catch a Prince), a baker (Indy from How to Catch a Bachelor), and of course, the fabulous designer, Tom (from How to Catch a Rival). Tom and Wren’s upcoming wedding provides the loose framework for How to Catch a Happy Ever After, but it also features the romance of a new couple, Rory (Connor’s best friend and Charlie’s ex-boyfriend) and Sergei (Kris’s ex-boyfriend and now chief of security for Kris’ sister, the Queen of Lydovia).
Yes, there are a LOT of characters and even more interconnections between them. If you are one of those people who likes to reread a series before reading the newest release in it, that will serve you well here. If you aren’t one of those people, you may want to become a convert, at least for Chester Falls. How to Catch a Happy Ever After is most definitely not a standalone.
But even if you’ve read every book in this series, as I had, you may still struggle if it’s been a while since you read the previous books. Ms. Ashley clearly expects the reader to remember the earlier couples, their backstories, and how the characters are related to or connected with each other. I suspect she may have overestimated, though, because even if you remember the individual couples, the interconnections between them are extensive and somewhat convoluted. Some are brothers, others are ex-boyfriends or best friends, and a number of them work as security for Kris in Lydovia, although they all seem to have connections back to Chester Falls as well. This information was not top of mind, and the memory searching while reading distracted me from the story. To be fair, I suspect that if I had refreshed my memory by rereading the other books before reading How to Catch a Happy Ever After, I would have found it less headache-inducing and overarchingly enjoyable.
How to Catch a Happy Ever After doesn’t present a plot, per se. It presents context – Tom and Wren’s wedding – for a reunion of these couples. That’s because, at heart, it really is just an extended epilogue, showing us the lives of the Chester Falls men after their HEAs.
As such, Rory and Sergei’s romance didn’t add anything to the mix, in my opinion. If anything, it muddied the waters. Their romance would have worked better as its own story. There certainly was material to work with. But, as it was, there wasn’t enough time for us to get to know them or for any chemistry to develop between them. They fell for each other ridiculously fast and because the romance was interwoven with so many other couples, it didn’t have the time and space to develop.
The Chester Falls series has provided many hours of enjoyable reading, so this final installment held a great deal of promise. I certainly loved seeing all of the couples again, but How to Catch a Happy Ever After as a whole fell short for me. There was no overarching plot, which may have been part of the problem. Many different things happened, yet nothing cohesive happened. I felt like I was looking in through windows of an apartment building, each one showing a glimpse of one of the couples, but nothing specific or meaningful. We didn’t get much time with any of them, so I felt like we were just checking in to verify that our guys were still happy together.
Interestingly, what resonated for me in this story was Ms. Ashley’s clear ambivalence, perhaps even reluctance, over letting these men go. Like a mother watching her children grow up and then go off into the world, that bittersweet feeling came through in her words. It’s quite unusual for author’s connection to her fictional characters to be presented so evidently. It’s actually quite sweet to see her commitment to her Chester Falls men and their stories.
Overall, How to Catch a Happy Ever After is a heartwarming, fluffy, no angst story. Refresh on the prior books before reading, and you’ll likely enjoy and appreciate the snapshots into all of the HEAs for our Chester Falls men.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS: