Blog Tour: The Meeting Point review by Olivia Lara

The Meeting Point is chocolate in book form. It is such a comfort to read and it was a joy to explore Carmel alongside Maya.

I received an eARC of The Meeting Point for my participation in this Blog Tour hosted by The Write Reads. Thank you to Olivia Lara and Dave (TheWriteReads). This hasn’t influenced my review in any way, my review is honest and unbiased.

Title: The Meeting Point

Author: Olivia Lara

Published: September 2nd, 2021
Publisher: Aria Fiction

Genre: Contemporary Romance (Adult)
Length: 368 pages

Source: Blog Tour (The Write Reads) – NetGalley

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…
Synopsis taken from Goodreads

Reasons to read Title:

Cozy and happy atmosphere
Immersive writing style
All the little stories Maya creates

The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara is exactly the kind of book that is highly needed right now. At least for me it was the perfect fit. The pandemic has changed my reading habits extremely, the genres I read most almost switched completely. I see myself reaching for happy and hopeful stories more and more, the exact opposite of what I read before (and hope to read after this all is over) But right now? I’m in love with the atmosphere, it’s so hopeful and happy even though Maya doesn’t have it as easy as one might think when looking at her life from afar.

She seems to have it all. A good job, the boyfriend, an apartment in New York and yet … it’s not as good as it seems which she realizes not only because she finds out that her boyfriend cheated on her but also how life can be in a place like Carmel and most importantly how she can be when she is not stifled by a job she isn’t valued in or a big and busy city but surrounded by kind people and with a goal in front of her.

Maya is a wonderful character to follow. She has been in a kind of stillstand for a long time and her day in Carmel wakes her up a bit. But she still needed one more push to finally go find her happiness.

Her search for Max, the Lyft driver, began anew and she really commits this time. Even though I guessed quite quickly who Max was, it was still very interesting to see how Maya would find out and how everything would play out.

The strength of this novel is the writing style, the hopeful atmosphere Lara created and the fun and kind characters. I really liked the friendships included and also, the small stories Maya creates about all the people around her. I loved how her ability to create these stories mirrows her mental and emotional state.

This is the perfect read to escape reality for a day (it’s a quick read) and dream a little.

Would recommend to:

Everyone in need of something positive and some comfort who loves second chances and reading about someone finding their way.

As a child, Olivia not-so-quietly ‘observed’ (AKA bothered with countless questions) her grandfather — who worked for the biggest publishing house in Romania — edit hundreds of books. And when he wasn’t editing, he read. Everything, all the time. Just like her father, who wrote short sci-fi stories, and was set on building the largest library she’d ever seen and her mother who’s never found without a book…wherever she goes. Her love for words came naturally, and after studying marketing, communications & photography, Olivia worked as a journalist for a newspaper and news television network in Romania.

An unapologetic citizen of the world, she spent a few years in Greece, Sweden, France, before settling in sunny California with her photographer husband and young daughter, where she works in marketing and writes. Oh, and let’s not forget the ever-growing menagerie that completes the family: Pumpkin, the Maine Coon mix, three black cats and a siamese kitten.

When she’s not writing or thinking about writing, she reads (across genres), watches old movies and collects vintage books, vinyl records, and eerie paintings. She loves traveling (and can’t wait until she can do it again, safely), swimming, biking, hiking and of course, photography.

SOMEDAY IN PARIS, her debut, published by Aria Fiction/Head of Zeus in May 2020 became a B&N, Apple, Kobo and Amazon Top 100 Bestseller and was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel Awards 2021. Her second novel, THE MEETING POINT, a contemporary romcom set in Northern California, is set to be published as an e-book on September 2, 2021 and in paperback in December 2021 in the UK and March, 2022 in the US.