Title: Beautifully Unexpected
Author: Lily Morton
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 200 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 4.5 Stars
At a Glance: Beautifully Unexpected is an opposites-attract romance full of charm and wit and warmth, featuring two thoroughly endearing men who go on to discover they might not be so different after all. If you’re a Lily Morton fan, consider this one a must-read.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Sometimes love comes when you least expect or want it.
Magnus Carlsen is determined to grow old disgracefully. At fifty-two, he doesn’t believe in keeping anything. Men, sofas, books—everything gets jettisoned, eventually. He’s divided his life into happy compartments. A successful trial lawyer, he spends his days lecturing jurors, exasperating judges, and striding arrogantly around courtrooms. He fills his nights with a parade of handsome young men who want to make him happy. Why date someone his own age to discuss back pain, retirement-planning, and corns, when he can date men who don’t care to discuss anything at all?
However, when one of these sunny young men shows an inclination for dramatic scenes, Magnus meets his new neighbour. And his whole world implodes.
Laurie Gentry is nearly the same age as Magnus, but that’s where the similarity ends. He’s messy and creative and nosy and mysterious. He’s everything that Magnus has spent a lifetime avoiding. So, why can’t he get Laurie out of his head?
Luckily, Laurie is only in London for the summer. Magnus can uncover Laurie’s mysteries and indulge their annoyingly hot attraction, and Laurie will be gone before complications arise. A few months isn’t long enough to lose his heart. Is it?
Review: I’d love to be able to say something utterly cheesy about Lily Morton’s newest novel, something like Beautifully Unexpected is unexpectedly beautiful, but let’s face it, this is a Lily Morton romance, which means it’s every bit as lovely as I expected it would be.
There was a time, not so long ago, really, that laying hands on a romance novel featuring a middle-aged couple would’ve been next to impossible, but not so with Beautifully Unexpected. Magnus Carlsen and Laurie Gentry have both left the bloom of youth behind them and are what some might call seasoned now. They’re both comfortably established in their chosen professions, settled in their lives, and they are both equally committed to remaining uncommitted. No inconvenient emotional entanglements, no messy relationships. This is why Magnus chooses to have sex with guys half his age (or more)—why bother with conversation when you have absolutely nothing in common to discuss? As far as he’s concerned, names are strictly unnecessary because sex is nothing more than a pressure relief valve, not something that leads to long-term, let alone a second time, with a man. No need for the formalities before or after.
Then he meets Laurie in what can only be deemed a rather awkward situation, and life as they’ve both known it changes forever.
Lily Morton’s trademark comically awkward opening scene provides plenty of snarky fodder for Laurie throughout the story, when one of Magnus’s one-night-stands shows back up at his door with a special surprise and the expectation that they’re now in a relationship. An assumption Magnus quickly and unequivocally dispels, of course. From that point on a friendship between the two men seemed altogether too inevitable, and Morton grows it so organically that the simple act of enjoying each other’s company becomes as essential as the deeper feelings that slowly grow between them—even if “Mags” isn’t willing to admit aloud that he’s developing a taste for Laurie’s particular brand of effervescence. And neither is Laurie immune to Mags’ confidence or the challenges of exposing his softer side.
There are underlying complications brewing on Laurie’s part, though, which serve to further unsettle what he and Mags have both labeled a short-term fling that will go on to have an immense impact on both their lives. When Morton reveals what those hurdles are, the blow to Laurie and Mags did not fail to hit their mark with me, and quickly all that snarky fodder from Laurie becomes emotional ammunition used against Mags. Every story needs a turning point, and this is that point. It’s the catalyst, and it, as well as the resolution, is delivered beautifully.
Beautifully Unexpected is an opposites-attract romance full of charm and wit and warmth, featuring two thoroughly endearing men who go on to discover they might not be so different after all. It’s a “grumpy one falls in love with the soft one” story on the surface, but at its heart, it’s the story of two men who find a safe place to land in each other. If you’re a Lily Morton fan, consider this one a must-read.
You can buy Beautifully Unexpected here:
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