Yikes on bikes. That was not good. It honestly ruins the earlier books when you realize what a bunch of nincompoops all the characters are in this one. The last (please God) book in this series focuses on Naomi. Naomi is married to Patch with twins, but increasingly finds herself frustrated as a stay at home mom. And with the death of someone close, she’s remembering the past and how messy things were with how she first got together with her husband. With the return of Zara (mentioned in prior books finally shown) the former girlfriend of Patch and member of the so called Girlfriends Club, Naomi realizes she may not really have the strong friendships she thought she had.

Ugh. Look Naomi sucks. The character is written inconsistently. Most of the book is her in flashback and it focuses on her interactions with the women in the so called club and mostly her lopsided and toxic whatever it is friendship with Zara. That said, I rolled my eyes at some of the women being shocked at a reveal that I would have guessed at, at the time. It was dumb and didn’t make any sense. And then Ranald does another reveal and honestly it’s just to give some time of reason for the dumbass decision Naomi makes later on. Naomi deciding these friends are the most importantly things in her life had me tilting my head at her like “Girl, really?”

The other women we have come to know (Rowan, Kate, and Abbie) are just written oddly and it just doesn’t work with that we know of them. I’m supposed to believe after what we are shown these morons start hanging out with Zara again? And listen? It just didn’t pass the vibe check. Another reviewer said this was written like a thriller and I agree. It’s written like a bad thriller. FYI this isn’t a romance (there’s no HEA or HFN) and it’s at best just badly written women’s fiction. It also taints what came before for the other stories in the series. Mild spoiler, someone asks the question of could a partner of one of the woman be capable of molesting their child and everyone acts like that’s a normal thing to bring up and not be offended by for a variety of reasons. It was like everyone got a lobotomy once Zara showed up.

The character of Patch we got to know in prior books is no more and is just whatever Ranald needs from him. I liked the Patch and Naomi we saw in prior books and heck in flashback. There’s no development there and I’m bummed cause I hoped for more of a character we can understand like we did in Abbie’s book with her and her husband Matt.

Zara. Sigh. Look this is now two books in a row that Ranald has given us a terrible secondary character these idiots make excuses for. I could see doing this mess when they were younger. But they are in their 40s. And the reveals about her would have had any sane person staying away forever. But the ending leaves things suggestive and down right creepy.

The flow was bad. We spent most of the book in the past through various years with Naomi being blind to everything and the present didn’t make any sense for what was going on. The present really was just to set up an inane reason to have adults not speak to each other.

The ending as I said was a mess. It was creepy and just a weird end to a romance series I used to really enjoy. 1 star. Read something else.