This was a super cute story. Val is an ex-foster kid who, after seeing a sign one day, decides to undergo a training course to become a foster parent. Co-running the course are her old caseworker Connie and Paige. Paige is cute but appears stuck-up in Val's mind.

Paige's stuck-up appearance is just nerves and the fact that even on first sight she is crushing hard on Val but then she becomes the caseworker in Val's first foster kid case and now there's a conflict of interest...

I loved the build up of the romance in this, it was slow-burn with lots of bond building. I also loved Val's interactions with the foster kids.

I did feel like overall the book could have been a little bit longer. There was a time jump that didn't feel very necessary and then the ending was very abrupt and rushed and I wanted more detail of them building their life together.

CW: drug use, suicide, child abuse, death of parent.

Sappy and sweet, with an excellent romance and a great look at the foster care system. Could rot your teeth out, but that's sometimes the exact book you're looking for.

While this was my first book by Mckenzie, I found it oddly alluring. The story of abuse, drug usage, and life in general. The internal aspect of CPS and all the flaws. Growing from it and the progress of adulthood after the trauma. Life.

A children librarian who wants to become a foster parent... You had me at hello. As a public school teacher, I hold no romanticized notion of the foster care system (including foster parents and case workers), but McKenzie allowed me to escape into a fantasy world where everything turns out all right.

This book Taking Chances by Erin McKenzie was an okay read. I think there could have been a lot more character development.

Val and Paige are both working in the foster system. They are drawn to each other but have to put that attraction on hold when Val ends up fostering kids and Paige is their social worker.

This was my first book by this author and I'm certain not the last!

Overall Taking Chances is a good read and I will definitely recommend it to those who enjoy a good romance with strong women and a tear-jerker story.

Thank you to NetGalley, Erin McKenzie and Bold Strokes Books, Inc. for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

For some reason, there seemed to be a few books dealing with foster children/system when this came out - or I just happened to read a lot of them in a short period. This was one of my favourites. There's a nice balance of a serious topic and romance. Overall sweet and engaging - with the kids stealing all the appropriate scenes.
Although it does deal with foster care and the reasons/issues around it, it doesn't delve deep so this isn't a heartbreaker type of book. It tackles the topic with a bit of a romanticized view - but McKenzie has strong characters and a nice writing style and I couldn't help but cheer along as things unfolded.

Taking Chances is an emotional wonderful read. It covers various tough topics and it handles it well. I liked the characters and it was written well.

This book took me ages to finish but it wasn't the books fault. I've just been so busy that my daily reading time is dropping.

I found this to be a really adorable story. Well you know with a bit of darkness but adorable nonetheless. The whole plot is well developed, though there wasn't much about the kids after the second half. It makes sense, but still those kids were cute. I loved Paige. She was understanding and wasn't overly intrusive. I think I could relate to val, with all the insecurities and the fears. So yup I am a huge fan of the leads.

Normally I'd have finished this book in a single sitting. But since I took so long to finish the book, the story was a mess in my head. So that's probably why I'm giving it four stars but who knows, I might change my mind when I reread it later once I have enough time to read.

This was a well-written book which I felt dealt with a difficult theme well. The motivation of Val, one of the main characters to become a foster parent felt real and it was refreshing to read a story where the characters put their professional responsibilities above their romantic needs -although it all turned out ok in the end :-). It's quite an emotional read, the plot didn't feel like just a vehicle for romance, it had depth and the characters were well rounded.

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43157433-taking-chances" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Taking Chances" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1544655853m/43157433.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43157433-taking-chances">Taking Chances</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16788501.Erin_McKenzie">Erin McKenzie</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2677098676">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Leads Val (children's librarian) and Paige (foster care worker) are inevitably drawn together in this romance with tears, drama and angst. The author covers the foster care system unvarnished with empathy and without inundating the storyline with excessive details. Supporting characters were neatly written and though many topics were covered among them drug abuse and mental health, the overall plot moved smoothly to a satisfactory end. My second read from Ms. McKenzie which I easily recommend with 4 stars.<br />I rec'd a copy from NetGalley/Bold Strokes Books for an unbiased review.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31134832-gail">View all my reviews</a>

Great story, it really puts life into perspective. I loved the story line and the charcters as well.

Thank you Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for providing me an ARC of this book, in exchange of an honest review.

I picked up this book because it reminded me of The Fosters, a show I watched recently and really loved. The theme is basically the same but, unfortunately, I didn't like Taking Chances as much as The Fosters, mostly because of the characters.

It's not that I didn't like them per se, I kind of liked Valerie and felt for her story. But I didn't connect with her and Paige and them ending up together or not was the same for me, which you kind of don't want to happen in a romance book. Basically, I didn't care about them or their life as much as I cared for Stef and Lena's and The Fosters family's lifes.

However, there were some things about Taking Chances I really liked. The fostering storyline was really well done, and hearbreaking! I felt for Valerie and the kids a lot. Connecting to that, I liked that the main focus wasn't the romance between the two main characters but this 'foster' plot that connected them. In fact, the romance was a real slow burn, which I feel like it fits really well with the story. The side characters were also really funny and I liked them, they had personality and were there as more than token best friend characters.

Basically, I liked Taking Chances but I thought it was going to be a book version of The Fosters - or at least as heartwarming, heartbreaking and cute - and it didn't quite meet my expectations. I still reccomend it though if you want a quick cute f/f romance that is a little bit more serious.

I had to read this. I'm contractually obligated since I'm a librarian.

In all seriousness I picked this one up because the blurb said that it had a librarian in it, but, once I read it, there was definitely much more substance than just librarian awesomeness in this book.

The librarian is Valerie. She was once in the foster care system and decides she wants to become a foster parent, even though she's still not sure how she feels about the system as a whole.

Paige is a foster care caseworker. She meets Val at the foster care class and then just as they're getting closer she becomes the caseworker for Val's first two foster kids (siblings).

That throws a kink in their relationship, although it also means that they start seeing a lot more of each other and getting closer in different ways.

Then everything changes for Val once again, and then with that change it's like dominoes for the two of them. Good dominoes and some less good dominoes.

The librarian stuff was pretty okay. I really liked the characters too. Sasha and Jen were fun (would have loved more of their story) and I really, really liked the character of Connie. She was amazing and in my opinion she stole every scene she was in!

I received this book via Netgalley thanks to Bold Strokes Books.

Taking Chances is a very good book, and a story of love, hope, frustration, happiness, and sadness. I like the adoption theme, it seems very well done and I feel I learnt something new. That is always a bonus for me. I suspect the fortuitous circumstances enabling the happy ending would be very unusual but that's the point isn't it? What makes this story stand out from other sad tales. I like both the main characters, Val and Paige, and even though the end was a bit obvious I was still rooting for them as I read. The writing is good and flows well. Overall a very solid story and worth a read.

I would first like to point out, that on the cover both women look white, one if just a more tan white than the other and that bothers me because of you are going to go ahead and put a person of color as the protagonist, then at least really go for it and make her look like a brown person on the cover.

As for the book, I am married to a social worker, who works specifically in foster care, and she says the book is pretty spot on in terms of the process and how things work. What she says is inaccurate is how quickly, and how easily everything worked out. Nothing works out that well in foster care and it can take much longer than a year for kids to become adoptable.

The romance was good, although at some points I found myself having to re-read passages because both the protagonists sounded so much alike when you were reading. I couldn't tell if it was Paige or Valerie. The kids were adorable and very well written and I liked every aspect of the book. I like when I can read about people of color in lesbian fiction, because it is few and far between these days. One thing I did not like was when Paige had to tell he story as to why she didn't trust women, and it fell flat. It just wasn't that compelling and it seemed kind of trivial compared to all of the trauma that Val went through.

Not a bad book, it was fine, Not sure if I will read this author again. We shall see.

Valerie Cruz’s life wasn’t an easy journey. With a mother who couldn’t get away from drugs, a grandmother who loved Valerie and her younger brother and would have gladly looked after them but for her poor health. Foster care was the only option. Her brother was reunited with his father who lived in the west. Valerie never saw him again. After a string of foster parents she finally gets out of the system, goes the college and now works as a children's librarian. There are only two people Valerie has ever trusted, Connie a foster care worker and her good friend Sasha. Paige Wellington had a very different childhood, she never wanted for anything, just her parents interest in her. Now she works as a foster care worker whose job is to find good homes for kids in need. Ms McKenzie gives us a great read. Simply a wonderful story. Very, very enjoyable.
ARC via NetGalley

A very slow start, which was disappointing; I love adoption and found family stories, and Taking Chances delivers both in spades. Much of the development veered toward navel-gazing, and characterization was a bit flat, but it was overall a very sweet and thoughtful romance.

It was a delight to spend some time in a romance with two same sex heroines where the fact of their gayness had nothing to do with their story. Paige and Val's relationship begins as Val re-enters the foster system, this time as an adult still struggling to make sense of her own experiences but also with an intense desire to help other children whose needs she can very much relate to. Paige is the case worker assigned to Val's first placements and as their relationship grows from professional to friendly to even more, they deal with a lot of highs and lows along the way. I hope to see more stories like this as the publishing world slowly diversifies.

While this may not be an instant classic, it was definitely a lovely story to spend some time with.

3.75 This was a sweet novel by McKenzie. I found this to be much better than her debut book Where Love Leads. McKenzie seemed much more focused and the story was the better for it. I believe romance fans will enjoy this.

Besides a romance, this is a story about the foster care program. One of the mains went through the system as a child and now wants to be a foster parent herself. This book will make you tear up. There are some ridiculously cute kids that just kept stealing my heart. I went through a few tissues. Luckily it’s not a deeply sad book, just enough to tug on your heartstrings.

My one issue was I felt that the first half of the book was better than the second. Another reviewer mentioned this, (maybe Bethany?) that the pace dipped down in the second half. The first half is all about trying to be a foster parent and the kids and you get so wrapped up in that storyline that the second half just didn’t grab me. The second half is where the romance is so that was a bit disappointing. The romance is sweet and the sex scenes are decent, just the pace was off for me.

Even with the slightly slower second half, I still enjoyed this read. And even with me crying a few times, the book still made me feel good. If you are looking for a romance with a little emotion, I don’t think you can really go wrong here.