Aloha With Love

by Lindy Miller, Terence Brody, Lindy Ryan (Pseudonym)

Soon to be a motion picture.
From the screenwriter of Rescuing Madison and A Lesson in Romance on Hallmark.

After a tough week that includes losing a big job opportunity and being dumped by her long-term boyfriend, Jenna Burke receives word that her beloved Aunt May passed away.

Traveling back to her Hawaiian hometown for the reading of the will, Jenna discovers she and her sister have inherited May’s dilapidated Victorian home on desirable beachfront land. The sisters can do whatever they want with the property, but there’s one catch: the house must be renovated before it can be sold, and Jenna has to oversee the work. Their Aunt even stipulated the contractor for the job—Ben Fletcher—who has a gift for making things beautiful again. He also has another skill: driving Jenna crazy.

Jenna vows to sell the property the moment the job is done. But as Aunt May’s broken old house starts to feel like home again, Jenna is torn between the life she’s been chasing in the city, and the one she'd left behind.

Genres: Romance, Contemporary

214 pages, Paperback

Published July 13, 2021

About the author

Lindy Miller is an award-winning author of feel-good love stories that are full of sweet moments and happily ever afters. She believes the best time to fall in love is during the holidays, preferably over a cup of warm tea or a delicious vegan pastry - two things she can't get enough of.

Lindy is represented by Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management and supported by Smith Publicity. Several of her projects have been adapted for screen.

Member Romance Writers of America (RWA) and Romantic Novelist Association (RNA).

Reviews

[The Nerd Daily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on The Nerd Daily | Review by Catherine Lowe

Readers looking for a light-hearted romance will find their perfect match with Lindy Miller and Terence Brody’s Aloha With Love [Rosewind Books, July 13, 2021]. The perfect read to bring in the warmer months, this sweet summer romance will pull at reader’s heartstrings and remind them of the importance of family and love in times of heartache.

Read the FULL REVIEW on The Nerd Daily

[Mary Ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aloha with Love is sweet, heartwarming story. The characters will capture your heart and will stay with you even after the end. If you love sweet, clean romance, then pick up this book. I can’t wait to watch the movie.

[Krystal - nerdy_book_lover_1987 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an ok read for me! It was only 191 pages so I read it in one sitting which was nice! Definitely pick this up if you want a quick little romance with family and deciding what you really want in your life type of book.

[Alexandrea Weis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartfelt and pushing all the right romance buttons, Aloha With Love is everything you want from a Hallmark read and more. Great characters and a luscious setting make this a go-to summer read.

[Rachel-RN · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jenna is living it up away from her hometown when she learns her aunt died. This happens in the same week that she loses a big job opportunity and splits from a long-time boyfriend. She returns to her hometown (which also happens to be in HI). She and her sister are set to inherit her aunt's home. Before they can sell, it needs to be fixed up. And, her aunt stipulates only a certain someone can be the person they hire- Ben. Ben is a local contractor.
Both Jenna and Ben clash at first. That quickly turns into attraction (there is a paint scene that was just a no). Their relationship moves fairly quickly, but then this isn't a super long book either. I really liked Jenna family (her dad is super awesome).

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review originally posted on my blog: I Heart Fictional People

MY THOUGHTS

The entire time I was reading this, I could picture it as a movie, so I am super excited about this becoming a movie. I cannot wait to watch it!

WHAT I LIKED

Jenna’s family. I loved her dad, her Aunt May, and her sister and her family. They all had their unique qualities, and I just adored all of them. What I loved most was their obvious love and loyalty to each other. This family felt 100% real to me, and I never once questioned that. I felt like this was based on a real family. I just kept thinking, Jenna is a lucky girl. How could she ever move so far away from these people??

Renovating the house. I felt like I was watching one of those HGTV shows with some romance thrown in, which I really enjoyed! I love the details described. I could picture everything they were doing and talking about when it came to the house. I surprisingly had a lot of fun with this aspect of the book!

Ben. Even though I felt like we didn’t get to know Ben very well, from what we did learn, I really liked him. I don’t want to give too much away, but I just loved how he really wanted what was best for the people he cared for and for that house.

The premise. I love the idea of a house being left in a will and fulfilling that person’s wishes, not knowing what could possibly come from it. That alone had me hooked, and I wanted to know what Aunt May’s intentions were. It was very cute.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME

Fast-paced. It just felt too rushed for me. I wanted to get to know Ben more. I wanted Jenna’s and Ben’s feelings to be explored more. Things just started happening so quickly that it felt unrealistic.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

So, even though it felt rushed, I still really enjoyed this book! It was a cute plot with a great cast of characters. I know I will love the movie, and I can’t wait for it to come out!

*I received an eBook copy of this book from the author/publisher via Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review*

[Lindy Miller]

Cover Reveal April 26! Ready for a sweet new summer romance? Coming soon to a bookshelf near you (and already filming!), ALOHA WITH LOVE is a story of first love, second chances, and building a foundation for forever. Coming from Rosewind Books July 2021.

[Katja · Rating 3 out of 5]

So apparently Aloha With Love is getting made into a Hallmark movie version, or maybe it's the book version of a Hallmark movie script. This makes perfect sense because this book is the quintessential Hallmark movie that checks all the boxes and I felt like I have seen Trevor Donovan in this movie before although it's not out yet.

A career woman from the big city suffers setbacks and returns to her hometown. Check. In her hometown there is a handsome man who works with his hands. Check. Her ex boyfriend is a cold fish, obsessed with money. Check. No sex. Check. There is an inheritance from a relative who was probably hoping to matchmake. Check. Hometown boy and career girl have to work together, probably to save historic buildings. important lecacies and family values from being destroyed by soulless city developers. Check. She leaves the city and career behind to mould her life to fit into his, never the other way around. Check. Because business people in the cities are always the villains of the story, and the only way for a woman to be happy is to ditch her career for a small town boy who makes her see that his dreams are her dreams too. Double check.

Seriously, Aloha With Love even has the heroine's successful female boss leaving LA behind for the heroine's dad, quite out of the blue.

The chances are, if you like Hallmark you will enjoy this book. I did too, even if it's formulaic.

Apart from one scene that's absolutely terrible. Now this may go into spoiler territory but I cannot not mention this. Do not read any further if you wish to be either shocked or amused by this weird scene without being forewarned.

Jenna the heroine and the Trevor Donovan character are painting the house she inherited and there is some accidental paint staining that ends with Jenna dumping a gallon of paint on his head. This makes him amorous and they kiss until the paint on their cheeks cracks dry.

1. A gallon of paint is A LOT when it's all in your hair and dripping down your face. If you've ever watched paint drying you know it would take forever to dry up to the point of cracking. We're not talking about a thin coating, he's got almost four liters of paint on his person.

2. Girlfriend, take this from me, you don't want to kiss a person with a gallon of paint on his person. It will be all over you as well, and his kisses will taste horrible.

3. The unholy mess this will leave behind will be the stuff of horrors. Once the paint dries they will have to bathe in turpentine and probably still end up cutting all their hair off. And while it's still wet it will be dripping everywhere they go.

4. Once the kissing is done they go on
to meet people and do stuff without any apparent attempts to get cleaned up, and hardly anyone reacts or asks why they have a gallon of paint on them (minus the paint that dripped off and made a mess in the house they were renovating).

5. She was on a tight budget and just wasted a gallon of paint.

6. If this scene in the movie has not yet bern filmed, please please use vanilla sauce or something and DO NOT dump a gallon of paint on my homie Trevor. I repeat: Do not dump a gallon of paint on anyone's head. Because unless the hero was wearing protective goggles, and there's no indication that he was, there is no way to keep the paint from getting into his eyes, and at that point he doesn't need your sweet love and kisses, he needs first aid ASAP. If the hero really waited long enough for the paint to dry he may very well be blind now.

7. Trevor, my good dude, please don't hook up with anyone who is insane enough to think a gallon of paint in your face is a good prank. (I am looking askance at the writers who came up with this stuff. If you know either of them personally, please wear your protective goggles at all times.)

I received an ARC and this is a voluntary review. The ARC is mostly well edited but there is one near-kiss scene in which the heroine's name is mixed with her sister's.

[Theodene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being from Hawaii, any books or films about the islands often attracts my attention. Usually I get quite critical over things that don’t quite make sense. Aloha with Love by Lindy Miller and Terence Brody surprised me with just one thing to criticize. The Hawaiian phrases are unfamiliar to me, but I’m not around people who speak the Hawaiian language. And the mention of the kou trees was so unfamiliar to me that I had to look it up! Those trees are quite common here and I never knew what they were called!

Thinking life in Los Angeles was the answer to her future, Jenna rushed back to Maui after her aunt’s death. Jenna and her sister Sarah inherit their Aunt May’s dilapidated Victorian home and according to her will, the sisters cannot sell it until after they remodel it, using a specific contractor, Ben, who’s been doing odd jobs for Aunt May for quite some time.

Jenna is healing from losing the biggest architecture deal of her career so far, her long-time boyfriend breaking up with her, and Aunt May’s death all on the same day. She unwillingly takes some time to renovate the house while intending to sell it after it was remodeled. Little did she realize how much she would fall in love with the home and how renovating with Ben would turn her life and outlook on life.

Ben is a fantastic secondary character who’s calm and full of wisdom. He’s also handsome and handy with his tools and grand ideas of what would make a great remodel. Ben sneaks into the reader’s heart with his subtle encouragement towards a beautiful renovation as well as keeping his promise to Aunt May to remodel her home.

That brings me to the one criticism I have about this book. People in Hawaii call our aunts, Aunty, not Aunt. Technically, she should be Aunty May. We even call the neighbors Or our friends mothers’, Aunty. It’s a term of respect. The men, we call Uncle.

At the end of the book, fantastic recipes are included that pleases my desire to pretend I’m a baker and leaves me drooling in anticipation of the delicious desserts! Strawberries aren’t typically grown in Hawaii, but it’s not impossible! Some of my most favorite desserts contain strawberries!

Thank you to Rosewind Books and Xpresso Book Tours for access to Aloha with Live by Lindy Miller and Terence Brody. I give this book 5 out of 5 tiaras because it made me feel like I was there with Jenna, experiencing the whole renovation and all the emotions she went through over the course of the book.

[Sonya Wasden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jenna had dreams of being a very successful architect in Los Angeles. But, after a disappointment week when she lost the project she was so focused on, and learning of her Aunt May's death, she just wants to go home. When she arrives in Hawaii, she learns that she and her sister, Sarah, have inherited their Aunt May's victorian home that needs a lot of renovation. In order to sell the home and split the profits, the home needs to be renovated by Jenna. Aunt May even hired her own contractor, Ben, to work with Jenna on the renovation. Ben has his own opinions of how the home should be renovated so he and Jenna butt heads a bit in the beginning but time and experience bring these two more closely aligned on the redo.

When a lucrative offer lands in Jenna's lap courtesy of her ex-boyfriend, she has a tough decision to make. Should she sell the property and allow the home to be bulldozed and condos to be built in its place or should she keep the home and lose out on the money but keep what matters most?

This was a sweet, clean, wholesome romance about family and love and coming home. It was a good break from the craziness of real life and a reminder of what really matters to me.

I was given an arc copy of this book and I willingly offer my honest review.

[anie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's just the sweetest story... of coming home and finding your way back to yourself. <3

Jenna just had the worst week. Her big job opportunity that she worked so long on, felt though, she got dumped and then her Aunt May, that she used to be very close to, passed away.

Filled with mixed emotion, she sets back to Hawaii for the funeral, but Aunt May is not done yet. In her will she left her once beautiful house and land to Jenna and her sister Sarah, they can live in it or sell it, but before they have to fix it. Aunt May even left money for the renovations and who she wants as a contractor.

Jenna is set on wrapping things up fast and going back to her old life, but Ben, the contractor won't just give in. The more time she spends on the house, the more she is torn between what life she really wants...

It's a beautiful, heartwarming story, of love and coming back home, of what really matters in the end.

Highly recommend it!

received from Xpresso Book Tours

[Kristen Lewendon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not surprised that this story is becoming a Hallmark movie, the Hallmark feel is everywhere in it. And it is exactly what I expect a Hallmark story to be. There’re no big, unexpected revelations, but it’s a quick sweet read that would be perfect for beach or poolside. However, the pacing is odd in places and I would have loved to have had Ben’s point of view. Also, maybe it’s just me being Canadian where low VOC paint has been the standard for a really long time, but it didn’t feel realistic that an architect specializing in sustainability and green design wouldn’t know what that was. With messages about love, family legacy, and being true to your own heart, I quite enjoyed Jenna and Ben’s journey. Three-and-a-half stars that I’m rounding up.
I received a complimentary advanced copy of this book through Hidden Gems Books.

[Movies, Shows, & Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: This review contains NO spoilers

Awww.... I think my heart swelled up with warmth come the end of this story. No wonder this is going to be a Hallmark movie... Ha! Aloha With Love is such a sweet and charming romance. Told from Jenna's POV, her story took me on her journey of loss, love, and family. Of course, the story taking place in Hawaii adds to the beauty of this clean romance. Yup! I think fans of Hallmark movies and clean romances will fall in love with Aloha With Love . This is a definite summer must-read.

Want a quick summer read?!?! Well, this I would recommend.

Reviewer: Jasmine
Disclaimer: We received a free copy for an honest review. All is my own opinion.

[Christine Woinich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story as Jenna found herself where she really needed to be. Her life's journey took her away from family but also brought her back. She was a strong and intelligent woman, and had her life planned out. With disappointment and heartbreak pushing her back home, she found a way to be relaxed and happier. Ben was so laid back yet dominant, but also a sweetheart. I loved his tenacity to show Jenna the right way as well as his willingness to apologize. I did find the beginning a bit slow with a bit too much repetition in the descriptions, but once past that, I found the story entertaining. I even had tears at the end as this couple found their way into my heart.

I received a copy of this story through Xpresso Tours, and this is my unsolicited review.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a sweet, Hallmark/Lifetime movie in a book.

Jenna loses her precious Aunt May and a big project at work along with her boyfriend of 4 years all the same day. She heads back home to the island where she learns she and her sister have been left May's house and there is a contractor, Ben, that she wants to help restore the house (and only him) and then sell it if that's what's wanted.

Along the way, I felt she discovered what it is to really be "at home" and to find the people who will be there for her no matter what. It's a shorter book that has a lot of heart. I love Jenna's dad the most. He's such a sweet man and he is the one who really turns things around for Jenna at the end.... Doesn't hurt to have a handsome man to work side by side with either!

[Ann Tosti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was sweet, but also a bit frustrating. I found myself often wondering what Ben was thinking- I NEEDED his POV. The timeline also was a bit unclear because at first it was obvious how quickly it all changed for Jenna but then we suddenly are a few weeks in the future and everything then just stays saying 'a few weeks' and it didn't really seem to line up well with the renovations either. Really- timeline as me at about 2 stars, while the sweetness and characters has me at 5, so I decided it deserved a 4....but still not a good enough 4 to make me race to find more like it.

*I am leaving an honest and voluntary review after receiving this book as an arc.

[Michelle Nakagawa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very sweet book supposedly taking place on my home island of Maui. While I enjoyed the author's love of this beautiful place, I had a few problems with some of the ways the characters spoke to each other as well as just the general way things happened. As a local, born and raised here, I actually winced quite a few times while reading it.

I was able to forgive most of those things because the intent was good. She celebrated the importance of family and how our communities come together to help out when needed. The feeling of aloha was there even if it wasn't quite understood.

[Bookish Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this book is being made into a Hallmark movie and it doesn’t surprise me. The plot is similar to many other movies from the channel and it is a sweet, clean romance. Although it is a relatively short book it started off a little slow and took awhile to get into. Maybe it is because there are no real surprises as far as plot goes. Nice characters and setting though! I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving a free copy.

[Margery Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful
The characters are wonderfully delightful. The story is sweet. The writing brings the story to life and pulled me into the story from the very beginning. It’s not surprising that this is going to be made into a Hallmark movie, and I can’t wait to watch it (hope they don’t change the name!) Great characters, plot, and writing.
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

[Isolette or (ICY) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Hallmark feel is everywhere in it. And it is exactly what I expect a Hallmark story to be. There’re no big, unexpected revelations, but it’s a quick sweet read that would be perfect for beach or poolside. However, the pacing is odd in places and I would have loved to have had Ben’s point of view. I love it I revive this arc book from hidden gems 💎

[Karyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fluffy quick read

[Megan B]

DNF at 27%.

It never really grabbed my attention, and I felt that it took the story too long to get going.

[Rebecca Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts slow but stick with it and you won’t be disappointed.

[Diana DiLorenzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect read on vacation in Hawaii. Good story, not too cheesy at all or anything like that. Nice characters and good vibe.

[Just Read and Imagine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jenna Burke’s latest architectural model is for investor Orville Barrington, developer of Terrace Pines Condominiums in LA. Darren Taylor, expert realtor suggested his fiancé Jenna for the project and has to ensure she succeeds. When Barrington goes with a different agency, Darren and Jenna go separate ways when he decides they need to build more equity into the ‘relationship account’ she was not aware they were building.

Reeling from this disaster, Jenna’s aunt May passes away suddenly and she leaves for Hawaii to be with her family. At Aunt May’s memorial, Jenna and her sister Sarah have learned that Aunt May left her home to the sisters with the stipulation that Jenna must restore the home using the funds from her estate before they can sell it. Aunt May even stipulates the contractor she wants her to use, Ben Fletcher of Legacy Renovations.

Architect Jenna Burke puts her heart and soul into her projects... especially when she embarks on Aunt May’s Legacy of Love. Come read about how all the characters come together and help Jenna come home to stay. This book takes you in from beginning to end.