Book Review: The Best Goodbye by Abbi Glines

The Best Goodbye
Author: Abbi Glines
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Australia
Pages: 239

Ten years working for a mysterious crime boss and River "Captain" Kipling is ready to leave his past behind and move on. The only thing standing in the way is his commitment to launch a new restaurant in the resort town of Rosemary Beach. With his sister, Blaire nearby, Captain delays his dream of running a bar on the waterfront a little longer, but the unwanted flirty attention of his head waitress, Elle, has him itching to leave- until he notices Rose Henderson, the new waitress in the restaurant.

All Captain knows about the redhead with the cute glasses is that she's a hardworking single mum from Oklahoma. But there's something very familiar about her eyes and her laugh... so,etching strange about the way she looks at Captain... could she be a welcome blast from the past?

My Review

Thoughts on the book: The Best Goodbye is the thirteenth book in the Rosemary Beach series by Abbi Glines. I'm going to quickly mention that I kind of think that this title should have been left for the very last book in the series, not the second to last, as it seems like a more fitting title for a final book in a series than for this one. Anyway back to the review, The Best Goodbye is told from the POV (both in past and present tense) of Rose Henderson, a new character to the series, who is a single mum of one that has moved to Rosemary Beach in search of her daughters long lost father and River 'Captain' Kipling. Captain you might remember is Blaire's half brother and who we got to kind of meet in Mase and Reese's stories, When I'm Gone and When You're Back. I really liked Captain in these books as he seemed to have a dark past and I couldn't wait to delve in further and find out what made him be so angry at life. It was also great to get a lot of backstory on both Rose and Captain and how they know each other, I don't really want to say too much more as it will give away the whole thing.

As is the case with most Rosemary Beach books in the series we get to see a few characters pop up from previous novels with Blaire, Major, Mase, Reese and mentions of Rush and Nate. We weren't overwhelmed with a lot of past characters like we have been in other stories in the series and it was good to learn a bit more about Major in this story, and I'm hoping he might pop up in the last story too. I also liked how it was told somewhere away from the usual places that we normally inhabit while in Rosemary Beach and it was also fantastic to see someone get their first job in Rosemary Beach somewhere besides the Kerrington Club where we know a lot of our previous leading females have worked.

Unfortunately there was one thing I wasn't very happy with and that was the ending. I think it just seemed really rushed to me. I was 50 pages away from the end and all this action was happening and then suddenly 10 pages or so from the end Rose was having to make a very hard decision and then suddenly she has made it, it seems without really thinking about it. But hey that's just my opinion and other people might not see it that way. But The Best Goodbye is a fantastic fit into the Rosemary Beach series and I know I for one am going to be very upset when the series is finally over as I won't really have anything to look forward too.

Favourite quote/moment:

“I can’t remember what my life was like before you,” I told him honestly. “And I don’t want to remember.” He smirked. “I remember what mine was like before you, and I don’t ever want to live without you again.” 

Rating: 5/5