REVIEW: Scary, Lovesick, Foolish: A Halloween Romance (Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish Book 2) by G.G. Andrew
It was a question he had to ask…
Brendan Forrester loves his girlfriend, Nora. Like can’t-live-without-her, Gomez-to-her-Morticia-Addams loves her. But when he asks her for more, he can’t help but notice the look of fear in her eyes. Then a ghost from their past shows up at the horror festival they’re both in, and Nora starts to change. Soon Brendan is remembering things he’d rather forget–including the voice of a certain girl he thought they’d long since vanquished.
It was a chance she couldn’t pass up…
When Nora Travers is offered a part in a horror one-act directed by the daughter of a Hollywood bigwig, she knows she can’t miss the chance–even if it means competing against her longtime boyfriend and getting back in touch with the mean girl she swore she’d never be again. But the past doesn’t want to stay buried, and soon Brendan–her usually smart, adoring boyfriend–can’t seem to stop sneaking suspicious looks at her. Or spying on her kissing scenes with her new co-star.
It’s making them both wonder: do they have what it takes to make it through another Halloween?
Dear Ms. Andrew,
I finished the first novella in this quarto-logy wishing there had been just a little bit more exchanged between Nora and Brendan to make up for how she had tormented him during middle school. Yes, she is a changed person, yes Brendan appears to have forgiven her actions but I needed some public apologizing from her and I don’t mean that in a “humiliate the heroine” way but in a “they’ve still got some baggage” way. This novella nailed all that.
After two years of dating bliss – stolen weekends along with texting and phone calls since they’re both in college two hours apart – Nora and Brendan are finally going to be in the same town. Newly graduated and with Nora finishing up a summer stock job across country that has kept them apart for a few months, Brendan invites Nora to see his rental house. It’s perfect for these two horror love-bugs complete with screechy sounds, peeling wallpaper, water pipes that groan and – the piece de resistance – demon faces carved around the mantel. It should be wonderful but Brendan awakens Nora’s long tamped down relationship fears when he asks her to move in.
Nora should be – well, actually is – panting with excitement about how Brendan’s done up the bedroom but she’s not as thrilled about what he asks. Instead it takes her back to the pain of watching her parents break up and get divorced – the pain which caused her to dysfunctionally lash out back in the day. The advice she gets from – honestly Nora, think about the source – two people also newly broken up doesn’t help her. She feels more trapped and fearful that being together all the time will only lead Brendan to eventually call their relationship off.
Then something happens that will pit them against each other professionally and – worse still – personally as Nora has to resurrect her old “mean girl” persona then gets jealous at who Brendan might have been spending his time with while she was gone. Looks like they’ve still got some issues to work out and those might just be enough to doom these two perfect horror freaks.
This is what I needed to see. Brendan and Nora have been deliriously happy but not actually living in close proximity, have just graduated which does make you feel both excited but also apprehensive, and really need to revisit and settle their past to move forward with their present. I liked how all this is worked into the story in a way that feels natural for the plot.
Old hurts resurface that are baseless to begin with only to become real as misunderstandings and pain lash about and screw things up. Yet there’s also some humor here as well. Nora and Brendan dis and critique horror movies – is it bad enough to be funny or just bad? – plus who else would both be excited about demonic faces around their fireplace? Still Nora’s fear that her relationship will crumble just as her parent’s did and Brendan’s dismay that he’s seeing Nora’s mean girl return with the exact voice and actions that take him back to feeling rejected stir up some shit they’re both afraid to face.
Kudos that they’re given the space and time to work through all this and in a way that brings scary Halloween back as a novella. Brendan and Nora had both grown up and matured in the first story but here I felt that they finally dealt with the pain in their pasts that were holding them back and threatening everything they hoped for with each other. B
~Jayne
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