Azu is Reading Under the Maple Tree (A Beach Brew Novel #1) by Manda Mazanec

What happens when a sassy barista, a sexy firefighter, and a drug dealing ex-boyfriend cross paths? Now throw in a decades-old kidnapping, and everything may go up in smoke…

Sasha Patterson has worked for years to get her life together, and the pieces of her future are finally falling into place. She’s staying sober and has saved enough to purchase Beach Brew, the small coastal café she has worked at since she got clean. But the shadows of her past are still there, waiting to sneak in, and they may reach further than even Sasha realized.

When Blake Ryan, the sexy new firefighter in town, walks into the café, he threatens to undo it all by recognizing Sasha, or at least who he insists Sasha was — Paige Knight, the red-headed, freckled five-year-old who disappeared from his neighborhood twenty years ago.

The scar on Sasha’s forehead says it all. But how can she take the word of a stranger over her own memories? Blake must be mistaken. Sasha wasn’t kidnapped and needs to prove it to him, but how far is she willing to go, and what will she discover while she tries?

Review

This novel offers you exactly what the synopsis told you: a sassy two-decades kidnaped barista, a sexy two-decades-drowned-in-guilt firefighter, and a drug dealer ex-boyfriend. How does all this mix? Well, you will have to read to know. But it’s not all that it seems. Even when you think you have all the cards, you don’t know the details, and the details are important.

How a girl kidnaped two decades ago is still safe and sound? How this guy is related to her? What does she do when she discovers that she was assembling a puzzle with the pieces backward, when a supposed stranger flipped the first one and it’s not what she thought it was? She needs proof to reconfirm her story, but the proofs… One by one they deny what she knew and lead her to a different doubt. So now she must find the real pieces and find out what happened, without much time to digest the new information, because after the first one, the pieces fall into a domino effect.

And what better companion for that than Blake? He’s all that is good in life. Protector, supportive. Because he becomes a shield, Sasha can breathe and think and analyze everything that happens. Because he supports her in making her own decisions, Sasha doesn’t feel trapped by pleasing others or fulfilling their demands. Because he is willing to be there for her, things happen and sparks fly 😏

But they have a lot to do and they don’t have a lot of time, but that doesn’t stop them from stealing a moment from time to time. In fact, with the help of friends, the patience of family, and the law doing its job, it hardly seems so bad to be living another life.

Phrases that I liked so much that I marked them while reading

«“It’s pretty good,” he said, watching as Sasha toyed with the piece that sat on her paper plate, uneaten. “It tastes better when it’s in your mouth.”»

— Chapter Nine.

«Just then, a gentle breeze danced between them, leaving strands of red hair covering Sasha’s eyes. Blake sucked in a deep breath; she was so beautiful. The way she didn’t care about how messy her hair had become as it blew in the wind. The way her dark freckles contrasted with her pale skin, and how they dotted her nose and scattered across her face, highlighting her high cheekbones. It was a different version from yesterday, when she’d worn makeup that covered up the freckles and had earrings that dangled to her shoulders. She was gorgeous then, but nothing compared to the raw beauty she displayed now.

Sasha drew her hand up to her face, tucking the strands that had come loose behind her ear, and that’s when his eyes went wide and he inhaled sharply. That scar. It was right there. He wanted to reach out, to touch it. To tell her he was sorry. But the wind came back, causing her hair to fall loose again. He knew he had to wait. He couldn’t mention the scar again. Not yet.

And then, as if by pure force, her eyes shifted to his, their gazes meeting through her tousled hair. Her hand lifted to her face. Her fingers trailed the lines from her forehead to her ear.»

— Chapter Nine.

«“I don’t know. I mean, you have the look. Clean cut, muscular, lots of tattoos.” Her voice dropped an octave. She lifted her shoulders, and then she reached out to touch the tattoos that covered the length of his arm. Somehow, she had allowed her fingers to trail up his arm, and when her eyes met the edge of his sleeve near his elbow, she instinctively inched it up, the tension rising between them. She let her fingers investigate the designs, one intricate pattern woven into another, blending between the branches of a tree.

By the time she had his sleeve all the way up, she had managed to change positions. Kneeling next to him, lost in thought, she released a ragged breath. Her heart was pounding, though she hadn’t been sure when that began. Then she lifted her head, slowly drawing her attention to Blake’s emerald-green eyes. He was staring back at her, his gaze dark and dripping with desire. She pressed her lips together before drawing them apart to lick them. The energy between them suddenly filled the room. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she knew exactly what she wanted.»

— Chapter Ten.