3.5 more like. Not my favorite Brayden, but middle-of-the-road Brayden is still a lot more solid than many other romance reads. Was the setting cute? Absolutely. Were the characters solid? Yes, even if I didn't connect with the main characters, Elizabeth and Devyn, quite as much as I have in other Brayden books. Is the dialogue well written? Yes.

My biggest gripe is that the black moment felt contrived. I know it has to happen, but it seemed abrupt and like it could have easily been worked around. Oh, well.

There was also a line that really bugged me because it's not the first time Brayden's writing has strayed toward either not knowing ace people exist or not liking that fact. When one character expresses annoyance that an older woman overhead her conversation about sex, the other character says, "Mrs. Rousch has sex, Jill. Everyone does." Which, like, not exactly true. They're throwaway lines, easily overlooked, and they probably bug me a lot more than they would others, but I'd like to see Brayden improve on that front.

Basically, I enjoyed this but didn't love it. This might not be a title I want to reread, but I'll definitely still continue to read Brayden.

I've been working on reading more F/F so when I saw this on NetGalley, I had to request it. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

This was my first book by this author but will definitely not be my last. Devyn, a big shot real estate agent, has to go home to the small town she grew up in to take care of a family issue. She really does not want to go. While home, she meets Elizabeth Draper. The two actually went to high school together but Devyn doesn't really remember and they didn't run in the same circles.

What happens next is a wonderful slow burn relationship that starts out as a friendship. Elizabeth is an amazing character and you can see why the entire town is in love with her. She shows Devyn all the town they grew up in has to offer and along the way, the two get closer and closer and eventually fall in love.

If this book is any indication of the author's other works, she has a new fan in me. Definitely smiled a lot and even laughed a few places. A heart warming and wonderful strangers to friends to lovers story.

Beautiful Dreamer was dream I didn't want to end. Melissa Brayden is fantastic with her words and ability to spin a story that keeps me wanting more from her all the time.

I have been reading lesbian romances for a couple of decades now. I still read and love many of the old-school writers that publish. However, of the "nueva guadia" writers, Melissa Brayden is my favorite. Beautiful Dreamer is another example of why this is so. I love romances where the protagonists knew each other when they were younger and this one delivered.

5/5

Well this book was everything I expected it to be. Once again Melissa Brayden has delivered a beautiful love story with two lovely yet sexy characters. Devyn Winters and Elizabeth Draper were the protagonists of a romantic story in a small town that we will remember for a long time.

Of course the chemistry between the two main characters was amazing (as always), the supporting characters were interesting and the whole story was sweet.

Thank you for another great book!!!

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

Fairly predictable, but that is what is enjoyable. Slow-burn romance that is extremely sweet and realistic. The characters are really fleshed out and a lot of fun to read. Dreamer's Bay sounds like a pictute perfect town that you would see in a Hallmark movie.

This is a lovely romance by Melissa Brayden. As they say, “You can’t go home again.” Readers of Beautiful Dreamer will find that you can negotiate the bumps and curves in the road to get home if you really want to do it.

The two main characters in this book are Devyn Winters and Elizabeth Draper. Devyn is an extremely successful realtor in Philadelphia and is on the precipice of landing one of the biggest building contracts of her professional career. Elizabeth Draper is a small business owner in Dreamer’s Bay, South Carolina. Elizabeth has lived in Dreamer’s Bay all of her life and loves the small-town environment. She has created a company that provides handyperson services at a reasonable price. Everyone in the community loves her and supports her company.

Devyn’s sister is injured in an accident and Devyn drops everything to fly home to help. When she arrives, she reconnects with Elizabeth. Although they went to high school together, Devyn and Elizabeth ran in different social groups and were as dissimilar as night and day.

Ms. Brayden has developed the characters in this book exquisitely. There is depth and warmth to the main characters as well as the supporting characters. Ms. Brayden’s writing style flows smoothly. Readers will find that once they start the book, they will not want to put it down. I hope there is a sequel to this book.

This is an excellent romance that lesbian booklovers will want to read. I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

And I’ve read tons. The plotting and characters are so rich. I desperately want this book to be made into a movie. It’s hot and hopeful. It instills belief that people can change. Love changes people. Just excellent!

This is my first Melissa Brayden book, but after hearing about her lesbian/wlw books.

This story was a really simple, easy read. It had me emotional in parts (someone almost dying will always do that to me), but on the whole, it was really easy-going to read and enjoy.

Elizabeth and Devyn are an ‘unlikely’ pair in the sense that Elizabeth grew up loving Dreamer’s Bay and all it has to offer, when Devyn wanted nothing more than to get out of there the second she was able to.

Both women come together because of Devyn’s sister, Jill, as Devyn hires Elizabeth to help keep her company while she works part time from home.

The girls fall easily in love, and it was really lovely to read about.

The conflict I saw coming a mile away (tbh, so did the characters), but the way it all came back together was really sweet, I thought.


I enjoyed the plot. There were a few typos, and a few parts that threw me out of the story (I will always be thrown out when suddenly, when in someone’s point of view, it flicks to another POV for a sentence, and then carries on in person A’s POV like nothing had happened), but thankfully it wasn’t anything too serious to keep me from reading the story.


3/5 stars from me.

When Devyn's sister Jill gets seriously injured Devyn has to come back to her hometown and stay there for a while to take care of her. There she meets Elizabeth and an adorable romance begins.
Melissa Brayden is your go to writer if you want to read a great f/f romance book and this one was definitely not an exception. The characters feel like real people, the writing style is engaging,the humor is there ,the plot is so cute. And after those sex scenes I need a cold shower lol.
One of my favorite romances of the year, highly recommend it to everyone.
Thank you to netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The small town setting was depicted perfectly, the two leads were both very likeable and had sizzling chemistry, the romance was well paced. Supporting characters - especially Devyn's sister - were equally well developed. A really enjoyable light read for the summer.

High 3/low 4.

This was a really good beachy romance with great characters and fantastic chemistry. I really liked the fact that it wasn't instalove, and in fact one of the mains thought the other was a bit weird at first. It was really great to see her come around and their chemistry come into play.

Where the story loses some points with me is that I felt like the plot was a tad bit slow out of the gate. I also felt like the writing in the first couple of chapters was weaker than in the rest of the book.

But between the great characters and the engaging small town setting, it was still definitely a good read and I'd recommend to fans of contemporary and f/f or lesbian romances.

Devyn and Melissa are thrown back together after not seeing each other since high school graduation. Melissa watched Devyn from afar and she never even knew that Melissa existed. Fast forward to present day, Devyn rushes home due to her sister having been in a serious car crash. Devyn stays to help her sister and Melissa becomes reaquainted with her again. The reaquainting becomes more than what they both bargained for. Particularly Devyn, when she realizes that her feelings are more than friendly, she leaves town without telling Melissa. Heartbreaking story telling with romance.
I would highly recommend this.
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Devyn Winters is a real estate broker driven to be the best in her field, the multi million-dollar deals she drives for her clients and fast-paced life an escape from her past. Her big sister Jill, her one connection to her childhood, lives miles away in the small coastal town of Dreamer’s Bay. When Jill goes missing, Devyn drops everything to find her one remaining family member.

Elizabeth Draper is Dreamer’s Bay odd-jobs person. Irrevocably happy and a natural leader, Elizabeth jumps in to organise a search for Jill when the schoolteacher goes missing. Despite memories of their awkward time together at high school, Elizabeth takes the shaken Devyn under her wing. In this time of trouble, can the ex-cheerleader and ex-odd ball find common ground?

As Brayden does so often, the characters are thoughtfully drawn and have enough quirks to be interesting in their own right. Devyn is a go-getter at home in the big city, but Brayden cleverly gives her a reason to escape the small town, and then a reason to come back. Devyn is never so hard or cruel as a character that she can’t bend once she comes back to the small town, and it is interesting to see how her perspective changes as she sees the town through her own adult eyes rather than those of her bitchy ex-cheerleader friends.

Elizabeth is probably the most surprising character. It is hard to find a character who is happy and friendly who isn’t a bit boring on the page, but Brayden has managed to give her enough quirks, and enough backbone to be engaging and challenging to Devyn. Keeping Devyn off-centre throughout the story is one of the best parts of the story and I really enjoyed how Elizabeth pushed Devyn to change. On the flip side, Devyn encouraged Elizabeth to change how she saw herself, something that takes the time granted through clever plotting.

Brayden is one of the best romance writers around, and this book is an excellent example of why that is the case. Her plotting is well constructed, the pacing never flags and the characters feel like more interesting versions of real people. There is a lovely connection that she draws between the two main characters and letting their relationship develop and mature over time is one of the delights of the book. There is a section near the end that felt a bit too overwrought, but it is a small niggle.

This was one of the best books I’ve read for a while, and I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with the characters.

Advanced reading copy provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

Reading a Melissa Brayden-book is like coming in from a heavy rainstorm, wet to the bone, seating yourself in front of the fireplace and just find pure bliss. I always love her characters, and this story is cute and small town-sy and just...dreamy! I get a little Gilmore Girls small-town vibe from this, and it's just very comforting and fun.

To be recommended!

I absolutely loved this book. Not only did I read the book I also listened to it on audio read by the fabulous Melissa Sternenberg. When I read a Melissa Brayden book I know 3 things. She will give me well defined characters, a beautiful love story and humor. I enjoyed the small town vibe. Everybody knows everyone and their business. When Devyn Winters sister Jill goes missing, the beautiful and sweet Elizabeth Draper forms a search party along with the police to find her. Devyn Winters is a Philadelphia real estate broker is at the peak of her career, closing multimillion-dollar deals and relishing it. After she graduated high school she was gone. Off to make her fortune and that she did. Jill is the only family she has left and she dropped everything to find her sister. When Jill is found Devyn and Elizabeth work together to help mind her broken body. This is a slow burn romance of the best kind. It just gives you all the feels. I loved the cover.

The main characters are so different, but not at all incompatible. I enjoyed watching their back and forth. I also liked The optimism of the one, and how it affected the other. Will definitely be reading again. And again.

NetGalley Review:

Listen, I am a long-time Melissa Brayden fan and maybe I am being to hard on her but I was not grabbed by this one. She writes so well and everyone who reads her books knows she is set apart in the genre but this was just not my favorite. I actually finished it a month ago and I feel like I've already forgotten half the characters. I never feel that way about her books. Next time!

3.5 Stars

Devyn Winters is used to a fast-paced life selling million-dollar buildings, but when her sister gets injured in an accident, Devyn is forced to return to Dreamers Bay, the idyllic small town where she grew up. There, she runs into Elizabeth Draper, a former classmate, whose beauty — both outside and inside — makes it hard for Devyn to look away. Devyn and Elizabeth start a relationship as "friends who are really attracted to each other", but they know what they have must end at some point — doesn't it?

The Plot - This is a pretty commonly seen trope in romance. The calculating, money-hungry workaholic meets a sweet girl who shows the workaholic the simple pleasures that money can't buy. I'm a big fan of Melissa Brayden, and she writes this well, making it a very sweet romance. I could definitely see how Devyn changed under Elizabeth's influence. This was an enjoyable read, even if it was a bit slow. I read this at a pretty even pace over the course of a week. I didn't really get hooked in until around 3/4 in, when the conflict arose. I think a reason for that was the lack of tension between the main characters. They had conflicting personalities but warmed up to each other pretty quickly. The two mains get together early on in the book, and I think this story has a few more sex scenes than the average Melissa Brayden book. It's pretty angst-free until the conflict, and even that passes over quickly. It's a well-developed story, even if there's nothing special about the story.

The Characters - I liked both Devyn and Elizabeth, especially towards the end, but I didn't fall in love with them. They both had "complicated" backstories that I felt were not explored deeply enough. I enjoyed the side characters — there was a lovely sense of community — but none of them seemed fully formed. The characters were nice, for people on a page, but they weren't quite multi-dimensional enough to feel real to me. Elizabeth, the character who I feel was supposed to be the easy-going open-book type, was actually kind of hard for me to pin down. I couldn't tell if she was a romantic or a cynic, but it seemed like her main defining trait was just being nice.

The Writing - The writing for this book felt a bit subpar compared to other Melissa Brayden books. There were some typos (which might just be in my kindle edition?), and some awkward phrasing. It felt like it could have been given another edit before publishing. A lot of the language seemed a bit repetitive, which is probably also why reading was slow-going at first. It felt like going in circles.

So final verdict - This is a pleasant and easy read, and if you want to relax and find something to entertain yourself with, this book can be that. This is still one of the better lesbian romances I've read. Just don't expect to be wowed.

*** I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review ***

‘Beautiful Dreamer’ is a joyful, happy, romantic story. Set in the picture-perfect Dreamer’s Bay, it is home to a woman who positively radiates sunshine, one who sees the good in everything and tries to see it in those she meets. Elizabeth Draper runs an odd-job business from her garage and is exactly where she wants to be in her life - except she has no-one to share it with. When Devyn Winters comes back to town to deal with an emergency situation, the pair find themselves spending more and more time together. Back in their high school days they did not move in the same circles. Devyn was part of a mean girl clique, while Elizabeth was the one involved in organising groups to help her fellow students. They might both be lesbians, but that doesn’t mean they can get past who they used to be and become friends or more.

Yet again Melissa Brayden had me immersed in the most beautifully romantic love story. One where I rooted for Elizabeth and Devyn from the start. Devyn was a high-powered real estate broker and had no time for relationships. Her life ran like clockwork, thanks to the various assistants she employed. But she wasn’t happy, and slowly began to see that there was another way. Elizabeth surprised her every day and opened her eyes to new possibilities. The story was endearing, addictive and hot. I loved Dreamer’s Bay. It was idyllic and I could see that Devyn would be so much happier there, rather than her rat-race life in Philadelphia. And by the end, not a dry eye in the house. Romantic happily ever afters are Melissa Brayden’s speciality after all. Highly recommended.

I was given this ARC for review.