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...
Before I picked this up, I hadn't read a romance in about five years. I used to love a good romance, but like with any genre, when you read too much of it the plot lines start to become a little predictable and the attachment you have to different characters fades. So after five years without a love story The Meeting Point was the perfect story to reawaken my love of love and it really didn't disappoint.
The story follows Maya - living with her cheating boyfriend, unhappy in her job and her life in New York. After discovering her boyfriend's cheating ways via a text message from a Lift driver, she soon finds herself having the best day of her life, taking directions from this mysterious man as he directs her around the beautiful seaside town of Carmel. But when the time comes for them to eventually meet at the end of her whirlwind twenty-four hours, things don't quite go as planned and soon Maya finds herself living back in the world she was determined to escape from.
A year later and Maya still can't get this chance encounter out of her head and when her best friend tells her she's just read a book with a romance so similar to Maya's it can't be a coincidence, she returns to Carmel in the hope of meeting her mystery man who has sold his story to the author. Whilst there she desperately searches for clues to her beloved's identity; making friends with Ethan - the author who wrote the love story and moving in with his sister Celine in an attempt to find out the true identity of the Lift driver she was texting that day. But Maya's quest for answers isn't completely straightforward and soon she finds herself questioning whether she actually wants to know the driver's identity or whether love is already staring her in the face.
Unlike many romances I really invested in the characters in the novel. Maya wants the fairy tale romance, but doesn't want to take the risk. Ethan is the aloof author, not fully prepared to put his heart on the line. Celine - the kind, caring sister and friend everyone needs. These characters felt real and believable, and although, as in many stories, there were clichés and moments where loose ends are quickly tied up, I felt like I could imagine this happening in real life and relished seeing the story unfold.
For me, I felt The Meeting Point was perfectly paced throughout. It grabbed my attention from Chapter One with the dilemma Maya faces over whether she goes to surprise her boyfriend or loses her job and continued to be fast-paced throughout. Olivia Lara does not do "filler". I did, at one point, think the thrill of the chase might be over only a quarter of the way through, but of course, I was naïve and the course of true love never does run smooth... I loved this unpredictable nature, the fact that I couldn't be sure whether the search would be over in the next chapter or whether it would continue to make wrong turns right until the very end of the book. Maya's oblivious nature and commitment to love plays a central part throughout - ensuring that the reader is often a few steps ahead of the big revelations but I loved this as it meant you were continually willing Maya to open her eyes to the truth and anxiously waiting for the romance to reveal itself to her.
For my first romance in a long time The Meeting Point really delivered. It's an intriguing concept for a love story - love via text; two people who have never met; a published one-sided story of the romance, and it works really well. The Meeting Point would make a perfect summer read and I urge you all to indulge!
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