Review: Vera Stein Is Fine

Vera Stein Is Fine by Julie Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Steamy

LGBT

Vera, Brody and Eli meet in college. Vera falls for Brody and Eli is left as the third wheel throughout college.  

Jump forward 20 years, and Vera is still with Brody (well, sort of) as his personal assistant (Brody is an actor) and a sometime booty call. She has also been her dying mother's caretaker for the last ten years or so.   One day, Vera read Brody's e-mail and found out something hurtful. Vera goes running to her Grandmother for comfort and help at the grandmother's retirement home. She walks in on her Grandmother (Ruby, an ex- scream queen) in an awkward situation.

Well, to make a long story short. Vera ends up taking a position at the nursing home as the events coordinator and finds herself face-to-face with Eli.

This is your typical frenemies-to-lovers story with a lot of quirky side characters and situations. Steamy without being over-the-top. And since this is a romance as well as a growth novel, you can bet that there is a HEA.

This would make a perfect movie for the Hallmark Channel, although it would need a bit of editing.*grin*

*ARC was supplied by the publisher Avon, the author, and NetGalley.

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SUMMARY : "From #1 New York Times bestseller Julie Murphy comes a heartfelt and hilarious tale of a woman who thinks life and love have passed her by until she’s thrown into her grandmother’s quirky world of octogenarian free love and gets a second chance with the one man she never expected to see again. Perhaps it’s never too late to play the opening credits…

Welcome to Starlight Palms, a favorite retirement facility among Hollywood actors and industry professionals tucked away just outside of sunny Palm Springs. Filled with forgotten scream queens, eccentric screenwriters, and heartthrobs of the past, it has a brand-new resident: Vera Stein, age forty.

Vera knows she’s missed her chance at a life worthy of the silver screen, just like she missed her chance at ever finding true love. But Vera isn’t one to take chances. She’s spent most of her adult years caretaking for her dying mother and her movie star boss’s ego. Now abruptly houseless and jobless, Vera has nowhere to land, so to grandmother’s house we go!

The Starlight Palms Senior Living Center is midcentury Hollywood down to its pastel-painted bones. This desert gem isn’t lacking in saucy plot twists (swinging seniors, anyone?) or a leading man: Elias Buckley, the on-site doctor and Vera’s former ill-fated college fling and—for reasons that will stay in Vegas—legally her ex-husband according to the state of Nevada.

It’s not long before Vera falls into a job as the activities coordinator and under the spell of a certain smart-mouthed doctor… Suddenly all those empty years in LA look less like mistakes and a lot more like backstory. With a fresh start at her fingertips, Vera begins to see that even with all the detours she’s taken, there’s still a Hollywood ending (and maybe even a happily ever after) in sight…

TROPES
- Second Chance Romance
- Workplace Romance
- Multigenerational Family Drama
- Forced Proximity
- New Lease on Life and Spice"