CLP Blog Tour: When Girlfriends Make Choices

When Girlfriends Make Choices is the third book in the When Girlfriends… series by Savannah Page. After reading book two, When Girlfriends Step Up, which I loved, (read the review here if you missed it) I was really looking forward to the next book in the series. I'm glad CLP Blog Tours was hosting a tour for both books back to back so I could read them in quick succession!

Here's the synopsis:

A novel about forbidden love, the choices you make, and discovering what’s important in life.
Lara Kearns has it all. She has her MBA, a successful career in advertising in Seattle, and she’s even living with her best friend and single mom, Robin. Reliable, dedicated, and eager, Lara is the resident go-to-girl, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Lara's that girl who has everything going for her…everything, that is, except for true love. With the big 3-0 on its way and no man in sight, Lara wonders if she’ll always be married to her career, or her cat, and never find the One.
But then, when she least expects it, a handsome and suave executive at her firm, Paul Mackenzie, makes a pass at her. Hesitant at first about striking up an office romance, Lara eventually finds herself falling for her charming colleague. And the best part? Paul is falling in love with Lara, too!
What happens, though, when the man of your dreams loves you…and his wife?
Battling with what the head and the heart want, Lara finds herself in a precarious situation. Life is spiraling out of control, but with the support of her therapist and friends, Lara must make a choice. Is she really prepared to chase after love…at all costs?
This is a provocative story about struggling between right and wrong. About what you will or won’t do for true love. About what happens when girlfriends make choices.

I was interested to see how Lara's life continued since I quite liked her when I read Robin's story in book two. I wasn't expecting the format to be any different so I was sort of thrown off by the way this one started off. Lara is seeing a therapist and those sessions are the present and then there's another part that's told in the past…I think. It was a little difficult to figure out what was the present and what was the past because it kind of seemed like two parts of the, well, the storytelling I guess, converged. I know I'm not explaining it very well but it's hard to explain a confusing concept! It didn't really help that book two and three overlapped – I was reading about the past and had already read about it from Robin's point of view and now I was reading from Lara's. This isn't a bad thing, it just required some more mental configuring, I think. *Reads over paragraph* Wow, yeah, that's confusing. Let's just move on, shall we?

I was just as drawn to the friendships in this novel as I was when I read the second book. I was especially glad that Emily (the friend who had spent almost the entire previous book in abroad) was back in their lives in Seattle. Just like the girls, I could sense that things weren't complete without Emily in town. I loved seeing what they were all up to and I'm excited to read the next book in the series (but I won't tell you what it's about or who it features because that will give away part of this story...so go read the books!).

I have to say that I didn't love the affair angle but Page made it work. Lara isn't the type of girl to start a relationship with a married man and it was hard to read about her finding out that Paul was married. I hated that he deceived her and found myself cursing him a few times throughout the book. It was even harder to read about Lara's downward spiral into obsession and I just wanted to reach through the pages to try and shake some sense into her! I was glad when she finally confided in her friends because I knew they'd do what they could to help her.

When Girlfriends Make Choices was an enjoyable read but I didn't love it as much as book two. That won't stop me from reading the fourth installment though! I am really looking forward to seeing what Savannah Page comes up with for the next book. I would still definitely recommend this series to chick lit lovers.

Happy reading :)