How They Met (And What Happened Next)

Irene Vartanoff

Aug 2021 · Irene Vartanoff

About this ebook

A Fish Out of Water

 

It's culture clash when suburban Maryland widow Lauren Nash attends a house party in the West Virginia mountains to please her daughter, Wendy, and get a break from the stress of a pending lawsuit plus an in-law’s weird demand for a family heirloom.

Wendy’s almost-engagement to Brandon Rawlings won’t become official until his mother approves of Wendy and her family—and his mom quickly makes her disapproval clear. So does her brother, Gary Murphy, who challenges Lauren in a hostile manner over politically charged topics. 

Lauren can’t flee soon enough, but a sudden snowstorm traps them all on the mountain, upending her relationship with Gary and Wendy’s with Brandon. As Lauren and Gary grow closer, Wendy and Brandon grow apart.

Once the snowy roads are cleared and everyone goes home to their normal lives and problems, will new relationships blossom or wither?

Shocking family secrets, a missing heirloom, culture clash, and a hike in a life-threatening snowstorm combine to make one wintry December memorable.

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Readers of Cleaning Her House will meet old friends in this story, the second in the timeline of stand-alone novels set in the extended Washington, DC, metropolitan area. Life Is Too Short is the third in the timeline.

Ratings and reviews

It is always a pleasure to read a well-written novel by a talented author and “How They Met” has intrigue, mysteries to be solved, and awkward relationships to unravel. Invited to what turns out to be an incredibly difficult house party, Lauren agrees to attend a holiday weekend in the mountains to please her daughter, Wendy. She quickly sums up the situation and prepares herself to intervene if necessary as the Rawlings matriarch throws out insults and innuendos. However, it is not Wendy that needs to be evaluated as their golden boy's prospective bride, but rather the young man himself. Unfortunately, in his mother's eyes, he can do no wrong. When the situation turns from bad to worse, support comes from unexpected sources, thereby creating the possibility of new relationships. However, Wendy's difficulties are the least of Lauren's problems and when the weekend from hell is over, she still has to face troubles at home. Later, Lauren and Wendy find themselves at yet another house party, with a further slew of surprises, when more than one problem is solved. This highly entertaining novel is a standalone and comes to a very good conclusion, leaving me satisfied with the promise of love and a future for the various parties. I received a copy of this book as a gift and this is my honest and voluntary review.

About the author

Award-winning author Irene Vartanoff combined her love of romances and comic books by working for Harlequin, Bantam, Berkley, and MyRomanceStory.com as well as Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Irene's women's fiction novels published to date are <i>Cleaning Her House, A Daughter's a Daughter, Life Is Too Short,</i> and <i>Summer in the City</i>. She is also the author of a superhero chick lit adventure series, <i>Temporary Superheroine</i>, and a sweet contemporary Western romance series, <i>Selkirk Family Ranch</i>. A lifelong East Coast resident, Irene lives in a forest of tall oaks in the wilds of West Virginia.