Y’all know I am a sucker for a good romance and The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara is definitely that! I really love how it is written. You think you know where the story is going in the first half and then it turns into something else that’s both unique and so so wonderful. I’m so happy I signed up for this blog tour.
Alright, before I spill all my feels here, let’s get to the review.
Publisher: Aria Fiction
Length: 368 Pages
Publishing: 2nd September 2021
Amazon
Goodreads
What if the Lift driver who finds your cheating boyfriend’s phone holds the directions to true love?
‘Who are you and why do you have my boyfriend’s phone?’
‘He left it in my car. You must be the blonde in the red dress? I’m the Lift driver who dropped you two off earlier.’
And with these words, the life of the brunette and t-shirt wearing Maya Maas is turned upside down. Having planned to surprise her boyfriend, she finds herself single and stranded in an unknown city on her birthday.
So when the mystery driver rescues Maya with the suggestion that she cheers herself up at a nearby beach town, she jumps at the chance to get things back on track. She wasn’t expecting a personalised itinerary or the easy companionship that comes from opening up to a stranger via text, let alone the possibility it might grow into something more…
Review
This book shocked the hell out of me! When I first started reading, I was like OH NO, it’s insta-love. One of my pet peeves. But I kept reading and I am SO GLAD I DID.
Maya feels stuck. In her relationship. In her job. In her life. Her boyfriend is a dick. Her job sucks. And she just doesn’t feel comfortable in the life she’s living. To try and fix things, she plans to surprise her boyfriend in San Francisco where he went for a work meeting. But what she finds there will change her life in ways she never expected.
When she gets San Francisco, she tries to text him, but it’s not her boyfriend who answers. It’s a Lyft driver and what he tells her shatters her heart. Her boyfriend, David, was cheating on her.
But what could have been a quick interaction with the Lyft driver, Max, turns into an adventure to Carrmel by the Sea and a unforgettable connection.
Unfortunately, they never exchange names and it takes another year for Maya to finally pack up and leave David for good.
Once she leaves him, she heads back to San Francisco. But she’s not going to look for the Lyft driver. Well…not entirely. She’s mainly looking for the author of a book that tells her story. The story of that night from a year ago.
Maya, to say the least, is PISSED. How dare he take her story and publish it! Who the fuck does he think he is?? Well, he is Ethan Delphy, a published author who apparently knows Max.
So Maya heads back to Carmel by the Sea to find the author and Max. But what she finds is not what she expected.
She ends up working at the café of Ethan Delphy’s sister, Celine. At first, she learns that Ethan isn’t in town, but he soon turns up and surprises the hell out of Maya. She’s living in his and Celine’s house. Things are not going as planned!!
At first, he doesn’t seem to know who she is. That she is the Maya from his book. But eventually the secret is out. Unfortunately, Ethan still won’t tell Maya who Max really is. Who is the guy she had such a connection with? Maya is once again PISSED.
But as Ethan and Maya spend more time together, they become closer and Maya starts to wonder if the guy she met the year before is really the one for her. Maybe Ethan is the one she wants more.
I really love all the characters in The Meeting Point (except David). I relate to Maya so much and her journey to find a place where she belongs, to find a person she can connect with and love. I love that she was able to break out of the life she hated to find something so much better.
As a grumpy writer, I also LOVE Ethan. He is charming when he wants to be, romantic AF, and snarky. I really love how we slowly got to know him as Maya does. His character may be my favorite of the book.
Celine is also a fave. I love her relationship with Ethan and how she so easily lets Maya into her life and they become good friends. She’s dealing with her own struggles but also running the café. She gets her own bit of romance in the end as well.
By the end of the book, I was crying happy tears and smiling at my computer like a weirdo lol. I really recommend this book to anyone who loves romance. This is definitely one you don’t want to miss.
About the Author
As a child, Olivia not-so-quietly ‘observed’ (AKA bothered with countless questions) her grandfather — who worked for the biggest publishing house in Romania — edit hundreds of books. And when he wasn’t editing, he read. Everything, all the time. Just like her father, who wrote short sci-fi stories, and was set on building the largest library she’d ever seen and her mother who’s never found without a book…wherever she goes. Her love for words came naturally, and after studying marketing, communications & photography, Olivia worked as a journalist for a newspaper and news television network in Romania.
An unapologetic citizen of the world, she spent a few years in Greece, Sweden, France, before settling in sunny California with her photographer husband and young daughter, where she works in marketing and writes. Oh, and let’s not forget the ever-growing menagerie that completes the family: Pumpkin, the Maine Coon mix, three black cats and a siamese kitten.
When she’s not writing or thinking about writing, she reads (across genres), watches old movies and collects vintage books, vinyl records, and eerie paintings. She loves traveling (and can’t wait until she can do it again, safely), swimming, biking, hiking and of course, photography.
SOMEDAY IN PARIS, her debut, published by Aria Fiction/Head of Zeus in May 2020 became a B&N, Apple, Kobo and Amazon Top 100 Bestseller and was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel Awards 2021. Her second novel, THE MEETING POINT, a contemporary romcom set in Northern California, is set to be published as an e-book on September 2, 2021 and in paperback in December 2021 in the UK and March, 2022 in the US.
Bookish Rantings 
Amazing review, I can’t wait to finish it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
thank you!! Yay!! The ending is so good!
LikeLiked by 1 person