[BOOK REVIEW] Brown-Eyed Girl by Lisa Kleypas

Title:  Brown-Eyed Girl

Author: Lisa Kleypas

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Year Published: 2015

Number of Pages: 291 pages

Date Read: 11/19/2015

Series: Travises #4

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 18+ (Sex Scenes)

 FINALLY!  The fourth book in Lisa Kleypas’ “Travises” series has finally arrived and I got the chance to read this book in its glory!  “Brown –Eyed Girl” is the latest book by Lisa Kleypas and it continues the adventures of the Travis brothers (and their sister Haven) as they find true love in the most unlikely places! This time, Joe Travis is going to get all the loving in this latest installment of the “Travis” series!

Avery Crosslin is a wedding planner who is well known around Texas as she continues to attain rich and powerful clients for her growing wedding business.  But one day, when she attends a lavish wedding she planned herself, she meets up with Joe Travis, the youngest brother in the wealthy Travis family and from then on, Avery’s life has changed forever!  Unfortunately, since Avery had her heart broken in the past, she refuses to let Joe get anywhere near her heart, but Joe Travis is one man who always gets what he wants and he definitely aims to make Avery his!

Wow! It has been years since I last read Lisa Kleypas’ popular “Travis” series and after I heard that Lisa Kleypas was making the fourth book in the series, of course I was excited as heck to check this book out!  Lisa Kleypas has once again created a truly heartwarming and witty romance novel about the importance of true love and how true love can cure your own insecurities about yourself.  I loved the way that Lisa Kleypas wrote the relationships between the characters as I actually felt warm inside whenever we see moments between the Travis family and how they try to stay together through hard times, especially during the scene where Haven goes into labor and we see the Travis family band together to be there for Haven during her time of need. But let us talk about the best part of this book and that was the relationship between Joe Travis and Avery Crosslin!  I loved the way that Lisa Kleypas made Joe and Avery’s relationship come naturally as Avery had trouble being in a committed relationship due to being rejected years ago and it made it believable to me to have Avery slowly build up her relationship with Joe rather than rush into the relationship without dealing with her inner demons first.  I really loved the way that Lisa Kleypas wrote both Joe and Avery as Avery is shown to be an independent wedding planner who is trying to decide what it means to fall in love again, while establishing an extremely heartwarming relationship with her half-sister Sofia which I loved reading about throughout the whole book.  Now, Joe Travis was one hero that I just fell in love with immediately as he is shown to be extremely patient with Avery’s situation and I loved the way that he supported Avery throughout the book, even dealing with her insecure nature towards love.  I also really enjoyed the subplot involving Sofia and Steven, the two co-workers who work with Avery, as I found their relationship with each other to be extremely heartwarming and hilarious and I would love to read more on their relationship if Lisa Kleypas decided to write a spinoff series for the “Travis” family series!

The reason why I gave this book a four star rating was because I felt that we did not get to know much about Joe Travis in this book since we rarely see things from his perspective in the story.  As much as I like the fact that Avery gets a lot of focus in this story, I would have liked it better if we actually get to see things from Joe’s perspective and see more of his relationship with his family members, which we also did not get to see that much, which was pretty disappointing since I loved the Travis family as a whole.

Overall, even though “Brown-Eyed Girl” was not the best story in the “Travis” series (that honor would have to go to “Blue-Eyed Devil”) it is still a truly great book about the importance of true love and I definitely cannot wait to check out more books from Lisa Kleypas in the near future (especially if we get more books with the Travis family once again)!