Review of Water Under Bridges by Harper Bliss, Audiobook narrated by Angela Dawe
This is book 5 in the Pink Bean series which follows a group of lesbian friends who gather in a coffee shop in Sydney. Most books can be read as standalone as each focuses on a couple’s relationship but there will be minor spoilers of the previous books. Having said that, books 5 and 6 stories are very intertwined so it’s better to read/listen to these two in order.
Mia Miller is happy with her new job as manager of the Pink Bean as it gives her a sense of community. But when the enigmatic yoga instructor Louise Hamilton is giving her the cold shoulder, Mia wouldn’t have guessed that a person from the past comes back to haunt her. But despite that hurtful shared history between them, there is an undeniable attraction that gets increasingly impossible to ignore…
Somehow I thought that this series was going to be full of fluffy romance, I’m not sure why, maybe the covers or the series name convey a lightness that these books don’t have. I should have known better having read book 2 in the series which deals with one of the character’s alcohol abuse but somehow I still get surprised. Water Under Bridges isn’t, once again, a light read. It deals with both main characters’ journey to let their shared pasts go and give future possibilities a chance. It’s all about redemption, forgiveness, and new beginnings.
Harper Bliss does an excellent job in describing the characters’ journeys finding a fine balance between the heaviness of their past and the positive possibilities of the future. Enemies to lovers is a hard-to-pull-off trope but Ms. Bliss achieved this without issues thanks to a strong and hot chemistry. The success of this story was to make these characters’ attraction so strong that it would be impossible for them to ignore it. Chemistry is a strong point in Ms. Bliss’s books and this one has it in spades.
My only issue is that this book ends up fairly abruptly. All the books in this series are on the short side which tends to be a characteristic of this author (though lately, she is changing this). However, if you want to know more about the main leads’ stories after this novel ends, then I suggest reading /listening to book 6 No other love, where Mia and Louise are important secondary characters.
The audiobook was narrated by Angela Dawe, like most of the series (the only exception is book 3). I suspect that a lot of my listening enjoyment is due to Ms. Dawe excellent performance. She is a very reliable narrator, thanks to her varied voices, character interpretation, sense of pace and compelling performance of emotions. Once again, Ms. Dawe did an outstanding job and makes me come for more Pink Bean stories. 4.5 stars.
Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
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