Super Bloom by Megan Tady
This debut novel has a lot going for it, from an interesting main character and plotline to touches of humour and hope. The main character is massage therapist Joan Johnston, who works at a luxury hotel spa in Vermont. She chose massage therapy because a good friend of hers did, and began a relationship with another massage therapist, Samuel. Unfortunately, Samuel died in an accident several months ago, and Joan is still grieving him.
Joan is on thin ice in her job, and her manager assigning a problematic customer to her as a last test goes in a different direction than Joan expects. The customer, bestselling romance author Carmen Bronze has a writing block, and wants Joan to dish inside spa secrets and stories for a fee, and a great review. Joan agrees, and finds herself coming up with lots of ideas, until she realizes that she wants to write them herself, not share them for Carmen to use.
As Joan works through her grief, makes new connections with her coworkers, and learns to stand up for herself with her friends and in her job, she also deals with a mother who seems to be going through a Swedish death cleaning phase, a stalker in a van, and hope for a more promising future.
I really enjoyed this read, and the way that Joan found this opportunity to be a way forward for herself.
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