40-Love by Olivia Dade
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There was so much to love about 40-Love! I enjoy everything I read from Olivia Dade, but 40-Love just hit me on such a personal level, made me laugh, and completely melted my heart!

Tess Dunn – current assistant principal and soon-to-be-principal if she has anything to say about it – went on vacation with three goals in mind: spending time with her best friend Belle, relaxing some on the beach, and getting work done on her principal-claiming strategy. What she wasn’t expecting was:

A.) A rogue wave coming in and stealing her top
B.) An attractive (young!) Swede with an appreciation for her…assets…coming to her rescue; and
C.) The meddling of a best friend to put her right back in his company.

Lucas isn’t sure what he’s expecting to get out of his time as the resort’s tennis instructor. All he knows is that his career as a professional tennis player is over at age 26 and there’s no reason NOT to be at a luxurious resort where he can choose from any number of available, willing women and never spend a night alone. Then he meets Tess and suddenly there’s only one woman he wants to spend his nights with…along with his days and everything in between.

Okay, so warning: I kinda bawled reading parts of this book. The fat representation hit me on so many levels of how I want to feel about myself and how I’d want my partner to feel about me too. Plus I love an older woman, younger man romance!

What I enjoyed the most about Tess and Lucas is that they both try so hard to help the other see their potential. Tess helps Lucas realize that he is so much more than his tennis career and Lucas helps Tess see that she is loving and worthy of care – not the automaton her last relationship made her feel. They both have work they have to put in to make the relationship work and they both DO IT. And it’s beautiful. Plus there are a very, very large number of boob jokes, and that’s beautiful too.

40-Love is funny, it’s endearing, it was emotionally wrecking for me (in a good way), and you should 100% go read it right now.

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