WITH NEIGHBORS LIKE THIS, for me, falls under the Friends to Lovers/ Single Mom Hot Neighbor trope/sub-category.
To be honest, I was expecting something of a romantic suspense style of story, though this story is not. WITH NEIGHBORS LIKE THIS is the story of a recently divorced mom of two who moves to a new house in one of the gated communities in Houston. Here she is close to her best friends, also single moms, for other reasons.
The divorce was bad, to say the least, and a tough time for Amelia and her kids, Jacob and Chloe, ten and eight years old. Post divorce, a new city, house, neighbors, and school with their separate learning curves soon become more than they can handle. As the children and their Mom face bullying from their peers, pressure soon builds up though Amelia is trying her best to cope and thrive amidst it all.
Will she be happy to report that she survived despite or due to Neighbors Like This; or will she succumb to the Mean Girls?
Wow, this was a quick read with some cute family time, enough drama from all sides, and a good old hunky hero with a heart of Gold. Amelia as a Mom, single and divorced, with full responsibility for her kids, with an absent ex to boot, is fantastic. She is great with the kids despite the self-doubt, and impostor syndrome, and the ever-present not enough feelings. Despite it all, she gives a fair chance to live.
She brilliantly handles anything that comes in the way of her children's happiness, all the while giving them a full life experience. She also has a great set of friends who support her and let her be herself in all situations. In the midst of it all, it was refreshing to see how she doesn't leave her personal life behind and goes for love too when she finds it.
Overall, a fun summer read is what WITH NEIGHBORS LIKE THIS is.
Amelia Marsh relocates with her two young kids to a northern suburb of Houston after a brutal divorce. All she wants is a bit of normalcy for her children. The last thing she needs is to be the center of a disagreement with the HOA representative. Believe it or not, her children's garden gnome is accused of violating the association's rules. No way is Amelia backing down on this one. Gnomegate? Really? HOA President Kyle Sanders would be a good friend—or even something more—if Amelia wasn't gearing up for battle with the HOA in her determination to make her house a home and her neighborhood a community...