The Magnolia Parks Universe: Book 1
Publication Date: July 13, 2021
“How many loves do you get in a lifetime?”
She is a beautiful, affluent, self-involved, and mildly neurotic London socialite. He is Britain’s most photographed bad boy who broke her heart.
Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballentine are meant to be, and everyone knows it.
She dates other people to keep him at bay; he sleeps with other girls to get back at her for it. But at the end of every sad endeavor to get over one another, it’s still each other they crawl back to.
But now their dysfunction is catching up with them, pulling at their seams and fraying the world they’ve built; a world where neither has ever let the other go completely.
As the cracks start to show and secrets begin to surface, Magnolia and BJ are finally forced to face the formidable question they’ve been avoiding all their lives: How many loves do you really get in a lifetime?
How many loves do you get in a lifetime? That’s the question posed at the beginning of Magnolia Parks.
Author Jessa Hastings delivers a rather toxic couple in Magnolia and BJ Ballantine. Their relationship is highly complex, and neither seems ready to finally walk away.
High fashion, clubs, and drama make for plenty of social media fodder. Magnolia and BJ have a lively crew of friends who keep the dialog fresh and snappy. Yet they still circle each other without really dealing with the various barriers between them.
Because there are so many characters and conversations taking place, readers need to pay close attention to follow the action. The cliffhanger, which is delivered perfectly, serves as an excellent way to begin the next installment.
Magnolia Parks features two people who should be together but continue to let their relationship woes fester until one of them finally walks away.
Jessa Hastings is an Australian native who now lives in Southern California with her husband, two children, two cats, and a dog. They have, as their best friend calls it, gone “full farm.” Jessa is a chronic overthinker and has, in this very moment, begrudgingly accepted American coffee and how depressing it is. She finds Twitter and small talk equally terrifying, and often still pines for a sourdough loaf in America that doesn’t make her tummy hurt or cost $45 for half a loaf. Magnolia Parks was her debut novel and the launch of the series, and she clearly struggles to write a concise or topically relevant author’s biography. She is sorry for this.
