With This Fling by Tara Sivec | Book Review • Ana's Attic Book Blog

With This Fling (Summersweet Island #5) by Tara Sivec

Romantic comedy with an older couple. Can stand alone but you should read them all.

I’ve been Summersweetened.

Just when I thought I couldn’t love Tara Sivec any more, she goes and writes a book about a woman my age (54) with a hot 57-year-old who are still so fun and sexy that readers of any age will love With This Fling.

Laura’s two daughters, Birdie and Wren, met their loves in previous books in the Summersweet Island Series, so we have seen Laura and her business, The Dip & Twist throughout the series. I’ve always loved her, she is cool, sarcastic, funny, and dates only younger men for quick flings. She is also basically everyone’s mom as new people have been added to her brood with each story.

It’s the week of Birdie and Palmer’s week-long destination wedding, and Laura isn’t interested in bringing a young fling to her younger daughter’s wedding. She would be too busy running around making sure everything goes smoothly and that nobody has a breakdown. But when Palmer’s Uncle Dean shows up, Laura starts to question her “younger men” rule.

OMG ladies. DEAN. ~~~SWOOON~~~. Dean designs and hand makes custom golf clubs (such an interesting job!). He doesn’t even have a home, just lives on the road going from one job to the next all over the country. He’s a grumpy, salt & peppered tattooed lone wolf who liked his nice quiet life, just him and his Harley.

Until he came to Summersweet Island for the wedding, took one look at Laura, and he was done for.

“Jesus. You are stunning.”

I loved how he just kept popping up all over the place, always there to lend a hand and take care of Laura. This woman has spent her life taking care of everyone else, and it literally brought me to tears to see her finally have someone there for her, even though she continually pushed him away.

“What do you need, sugar?”

Things I loved (there are no dislikes):

Characters in their 50s who are just as cool as her characters in their 20s.
Visiting with all the other Summersweet couples.
There were a few casual references to menopause, hot flashes, and aging bodies, but it was never harped on at all, and they were all funny and relatable. Most of the time they could be any age.
Dean is literally the perfect man. “Hard or slow, sugar? What do you need?”
While we are there for Birdie’s wedding, the story very much focused on Laura and Dean.
The banter between them was perfect!
The sex was HOT and age-appropriate (yes, people in their 50s can still have crazy hot sex!)
The cover is so perfect and exactly how I picture them (except real lol).
The heartbreak and pride (at the same time) of your kids growing up and not really needing you anymore was written perfectly.

The Down & Dirty:

Nobody else but Tara Sivec can make me literally laugh out loud and bawl my eyes out at the same time. The Summersweet Island family is all a little OTT, but I can’t tell you how happy this series makes me. I look for books with older couples, so I’ve read a good number of them, but this portrayal actually felt the most real of any to me. Dean and Laura have lived nice lives all along, but when they realize how much better it is together, magic happens. Tara did the impossible and took a normal people in their fifties and Summersweetened them, and I couldn’t be happier to see there will be another in the series.