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South Village Singles #3
Messing with Mac
New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis brings readers book three in the classic series South Village Singles, where a group of friends makes a vow of singlehood in a vibrant suburb of Los Angeles.
Vowing to be single is easy…
Taylor Wellington doesn’t do relationships. She learned a long time ago that they were a recipe for heartache. However, she does do flings – steamy affairs that burn hot… and brief. And her sexy new contractor, Thomas ‘Mac’ Mackenzie, has her thinking about burning up some sheets. Problem is, now that she’s got him right where she wants him, she can’t seem to stop playing with fire.
Until this sexy bachelor comes along!
At the start, Mac is in perfect agreement with Taylor – they’ll keep things hot and light, then walk away when they’re done. But for reasons he can’t explain he doesn’t want to end this affair. In fact, he wants more. So now he’ll just have to use some seductive persuasion to convince her that this is too good to let go…
Vowing to be single is easy…
Taylor Wellington doesn’t do relationships. She learned a long time ago that they were a recipe for heartache. However, she does do flings – steamy affairs that burn hot… and brief. And her sexy new contractor, Thomas ‘Mac’ Mackenzie, has her thinking about burning up some sheets. Problem is, now that she’s got him right where she wants him, she can’t seem to stop playing with fire.
Until this sexy bachelor comes along!
At the start, Mac is in perfect agreement with Taylor – they’ll keep things hot and light, then walk away when they’re done. But for reasons he can’t explain he doesn’t want to end this affair. In fact, he wants more. So now he’ll just have to use some seductive persuasion to convince her that this is too good to let go…
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published March 1, 2003
78 people are currently reading
428 people want to read
About the author
Jill Shalvis
389 books13.9k followersJill Shalvis is a NYT, USA Today, and Amazon Top 100 bestselling author of small-town romance and romcoms, known for big feels, found family, and plenty of shenanigans.
If you love small-town chaos, meddling friends and neighbors, sizzling chemistry, and heroes who fall hard for the one woman they absolutely did not plan on, you’re in the right place. Jill’s books blend laugh-out-loud moments with emotional gut punches, slow-burn tension, and deeply earned happily ever afters.
She writes the stories she loves to read: small-town romance and romantic comedies packed with heart, heat, second chances, grumpy/sunshine sparks, and the kind of found-family vibes that make you want to move right into the pages. Many of her series are perfect for binge-reading, and a number of her books are available in Kindle Unlimited and at major retailers.
When she’s not writing, she’s probably plotting new ways to torture her characters, avoiding laundry, or daydreaming about fictional men and the strong, complicated women who bring them to their knees—and then making them work for it.
You can follow Jill here on Goodreads to keep up with new releases, add her books to your shelves, and discover which small town you want to get lost in next.
If you love small-town chaos, meddling friends and neighbors, sizzling chemistry, and heroes who fall hard for the one woman they absolutely did not plan on, you’re in the right place. Jill’s books blend laugh-out-loud moments with emotional gut punches, slow-burn tension, and deeply earned happily ever afters.
She writes the stories she loves to read: small-town romance and romantic comedies packed with heart, heat, second chances, grumpy/sunshine sparks, and the kind of found-family vibes that make you want to move right into the pages. Many of her series are perfect for binge-reading, and a number of her books are available in Kindle Unlimited and at major retailers.
When she’s not writing, she’s probably plotting new ways to torture her characters, avoiding laundry, or daydreaming about fictional men and the strong, complicated women who bring them to their knees—and then making them work for it.
You can follow Jill here on Goodreads to keep up with new releases, add her books to your shelves, and discover which small town you want to get lost in next.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 18, 2012
Messing with Mac was a smooth and enjoyable read.
There wasn’t an over abundance of drama...actually there wasn’t much drama at all. It's a feel good read from start to finish, something light and fluffy to read when you want to veg out and relax. I let my kindle read it to me while I was sick and it was simply a perfect fit.
I loved Mac and Taylor. They were both feisty, quick witted, sexy and loveable. Some of my most favourite characters are rough and gruff, sexy as hell, and tough as nails on the outside but all gooey in the center. That is exactly what Mac is.
He’s the typical building contractor with his bulging muscles and take no shit attitude, but on the inside he is utterly soft and sweet – and entirely respectful to women, which makes him all the more perfect.
I fell in love with Taylor too. She wasn’t weak. She did have issues but she wasn’t hung up on them. She is strong, beautiful and determined.
Although I was a dick and started this series out of order, I definitely want to go back and read all the others.
July 10, 2019
Messing with Mac is the third and what I believe was intended to be the final book in Jill Shalvis’s South Village Singles series. I say that because in the first book we were introduced to the three young women who would fall in love in the first three books. There was a fourth book added after Messing with Mac that concluded the series but the heroine of that book is nowhere to be found in the first three books which are linked by the friendship between Suzanne, Nicole and Taylor all of whom at one time lived in Taylor’s apartment building. Even the epilogue to this book certainly seemed like it was the end of the series. This series was written in the 2003-2004 time frame when Shalvis was just starting to make a name for herself in the contemporary romance genre. It’s a good series, not a great one but you can definitely see Shalvis has talent.
In the series begins the three young twenty-something women all vow to remain single for different reasons. With each book one of them falls in love breaking her vow. In this book it’s Taylor who despite her insistence to her now in love friends that she’s never falling in love, eventually does. In this book we discover Taylor’s story and why she feels love hurts too much to ever give her heart away again. We also learn more of Taylor’s estranged relationship with her mother and sisters. Taylor regrets the superficial life she led growing up, living off of her grandfather’s wealth. When he dies living everything to her mother who refuses to share in her bounty, Taylor is left with only a rundown building in the rapidly gentrified South Village neighborhood outside of L.A. The building has great potential but needs plenty of work to bring out it’s true value. It’s sort of a metaphor for Taylor. She sees restoring the old building as a chance to prove herself as something more than a spoiled, trust fund socialite. While many see her that way (including our hero Mac) the truth is all she has to her name is the building, a whole lot of designer clothes and a bunch of priceless antiques she’s collected that she is selling off to pay for the building’s restoration.
Mac our male lead in this story is the contractor Taylor has hired to do the restoration on her building. Just like the men who stole her friends hearts Mac is tall, leanly muscled and devastatingly handsome. Mac has a really ugly marriage and divorce in his background that has him wary of love. He’s working hard to develop his reputation as a contractor in order to get more lucrative contracts restoring historic buildings in South Village. Like Taylor his parents are very successful and affluent but Mac has always been determined to stand on his own without their financial support. Unlike Taylor, his parents are loving and supportive. I guess if I were to have one minor complain with this story it’s that Taylor’s mother never gets payback for being a cold uncaring bitch or that Taylor never gets access to any of the money her grandfather left in his estate.
Like the other two books in this series this book is entertaining but even though it’s not very long it feels like the story could have been tightened up and shortened. Taylor and Mac like the other couples in the series feel an immediate physical attraction to one another that they’ve never felt before. Both fear this attraction could lead them to want more than sex which scares them both to death. So despite a couple of make-out sessions when they can’t resist each other the sex doesn’t actually happen until late in the story. By this point Taylor has finally made peace with the idea that she can move on from the loss of her first love and suspects she could easily fall hard for Mac. But she also believes (rightly so) that Mac can’t move on from his first wife. She thinks he’s still in love with her but the truth is he’s afraid of making the same mistake again and getting hurt. Which if I think too hard about it, IMHO makes him a wuss. Sorry ladies, but a lot of us have gone through bad first marriages without allowing the experience to turn us off to the idea of love that Mac’s did. At any rate this is a contemporary romance which means there’ll be a happily ever after. Eventually Mac gets his head out of his ass and Taylor like her friends finds herself with a diamond on her left ring finger. The epilogue while brief is very sweet as we get a final look into the lives of the three friends who swore they were never going to fall in love. Ha!
In the series begins the three young twenty-something women all vow to remain single for different reasons. With each book one of them falls in love breaking her vow. In this book it’s Taylor who despite her insistence to her now in love friends that she’s never falling in love, eventually does. In this book we discover Taylor’s story and why she feels love hurts too much to ever give her heart away again. We also learn more of Taylor’s estranged relationship with her mother and sisters. Taylor regrets the superficial life she led growing up, living off of her grandfather’s wealth. When he dies living everything to her mother who refuses to share in her bounty, Taylor is left with only a rundown building in the rapidly gentrified South Village neighborhood outside of L.A. The building has great potential but needs plenty of work to bring out it’s true value. It’s sort of a metaphor for Taylor. She sees restoring the old building as a chance to prove herself as something more than a spoiled, trust fund socialite. While many see her that way (including our hero Mac) the truth is all she has to her name is the building, a whole lot of designer clothes and a bunch of priceless antiques she’s collected that she is selling off to pay for the building’s restoration.
Mac our male lead in this story is the contractor Taylor has hired to do the restoration on her building. Just like the men who stole her friends hearts Mac is tall, leanly muscled and devastatingly handsome. Mac has a really ugly marriage and divorce in his background that has him wary of love. He’s working hard to develop his reputation as a contractor in order to get more lucrative contracts restoring historic buildings in South Village. Like Taylor his parents are very successful and affluent but Mac has always been determined to stand on his own without their financial support. Unlike Taylor, his parents are loving and supportive. I guess if I were to have one minor complain with this story it’s that Taylor’s mother never gets payback for being a cold uncaring bitch or that Taylor never gets access to any of the money her grandfather left in his estate.
Like the other two books in this series this book is entertaining but even though it’s not very long it feels like the story could have been tightened up and shortened. Taylor and Mac like the other couples in the series feel an immediate physical attraction to one another that they’ve never felt before. Both fear this attraction could lead them to want more than sex which scares them both to death. So despite a couple of make-out sessions when they can’t resist each other the sex doesn’t actually happen until late in the story. By this point Taylor has finally made peace with the idea that she can move on from the loss of her first love and suspects she could easily fall hard for Mac. But she also believes (rightly so) that Mac can’t move on from his first wife. She thinks he’s still in love with her but the truth is he’s afraid of making the same mistake again and getting hurt. Which if I think too hard about it, IMHO makes him a wuss. Sorry ladies, but a lot of us have gone through bad first marriages without allowing the experience to turn us off to the idea of love that Mac’s did. At any rate this is a contemporary romance which means there’ll be a happily ever after. Eventually Mac gets his head out of his ass and Taylor like her friends finds herself with a diamond on her left ring finger. The epilogue while brief is very sweet as we get a final look into the lives of the three friends who swore they were never going to fall in love. Ha!
May 19, 2017
This is a fun, sassy, light-hearted romance. Mac and Taylor both have trust issues (though for different reasons). They both come from moneyed families but are both struggling to make it on their own . . . until they start to wonder if they can make it together. Though it is the third of a trilogy, it works very well as a standalone (I haven't read the 1st two). A quick, easy read for those who enjoy a flirty romance.
November 7, 2019
3.5 stars
April 17, 2020
Jill is always the best. Cute story.
April 11, 2025
great book
December 12, 2016
As you may know, I have been trying to get my hands on as many old Jill Shalvis stories as possible and reading her works in order of publication. This has been a mixed bag. I can definitely see her growth as the years progress. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find all of her books. But between the library and the online library I’ve found a few. This one was at my local library in the form of a beat up well read trade paperback.
I was so happy this story immediately reminded me of more current Jill Shalvis works. The chemistry between Taylor and Mac is off the charts. Best of all is the slow-build, the will they or won’t they (although we all know they will!), the sexual push and pull. I became quite invested on getting these two together even though, as the reader, there was nothing I could do.
As you’ll notice, this is book 3 in a series. I wasn’t able to get either book 1 or 2 to read but that absolutely did not matter. This story can be read as a standalone. If you can get your hands on the first two, I’m sure they’re worth the read. And you might get some extra background on Taylor.
This is a super quick read that I read in one day while also doing some Christmas baking.
I was so happy this story immediately reminded me of more current Jill Shalvis works. The chemistry between Taylor and Mac is off the charts. Best of all is the slow-build, the will they or won’t they (although we all know they will!), the sexual push and pull. I became quite invested on getting these two together even though, as the reader, there was nothing I could do.
As you’ll notice, this is book 3 in a series. I wasn’t able to get either book 1 or 2 to read but that absolutely did not matter. This story can be read as a standalone. If you can get your hands on the first two, I’m sure they’re worth the read. And you might get some extra background on Taylor.
This is a super quick read that I read in one day while also doing some Christmas baking.
February 27, 2016
VOWING TO BE SINGLE IS EASY...
Taylor Wellington doesn't do relationships. She learned a long time ago that they were a recipe for heartache. However, she does do flings—steamy affairs that burn hot...and brief. And her sexy new contractor, Thomas "Mac" Mackenzie, has her thinking about burning up some sheets. Problem is, now that she's got him right where she wants him, she can't seem to stop playing with fire.
UNTIL THIS SEXY BACHELOR COMES ALONG!
At the start, Mac is in perfect agreement with Taylor— they'll keep things hot and light, then walk away when they're done. But for reasons he can't explain he doesn't want to end this affair. In fact, he wants more. So now he'll just have to use some seductive persuasion to convince her that this is too good to let go....
One that must be on your TBR list. 5 stars
Taylor Wellington doesn't do relationships. She learned a long time ago that they were a recipe for heartache. However, she does do flings—steamy affairs that burn hot...and brief. And her sexy new contractor, Thomas "Mac" Mackenzie, has her thinking about burning up some sheets. Problem is, now that she's got him right where she wants him, she can't seem to stop playing with fire.
UNTIL THIS SEXY BACHELOR COMES ALONG!
At the start, Mac is in perfect agreement with Taylor— they'll keep things hot and light, then walk away when they're done. But for reasons he can't explain he doesn't want to end this affair. In fact, he wants more. So now he'll just have to use some seductive persuasion to convince her that this is too good to let go....
One that must be on your TBR list. 5 stars
December 4, 2017
The weakest of the three stories in this series, I really just couldn't see why Taylor and Mac really connected. Or how they're going to get to their happily ever after. But maybe that's supposed to be part of our own imagination.
Taylor is a former spoiled princess who has come down in the world. Mac is doing renovations on her house. He immediately assumes that she is jst like his ex-wife. So they don't hit it off. In her case, Taylor has had her heart closed off since her one true love died when she was young.
Taylor is a former spoiled princess who has come down in the world. Mac is doing renovations on her house. He immediately assumes that she is jst like his ex-wife. So they don't hit it off. In her case, Taylor has had her heart closed off since her one true love died when she was young.
August 6, 2014
Honestly at first, I hated Mac. He was a jerk! Then as I learned more about him and as Taylor warmed him up, I grew to really like him. I've liked Taylor from book 1 and her story did not disappoint. Great character development, great writing, and great romance. Can Shalvis do wrong?!?! My only real complaint is I felt like all three books could have been longer. I was curious as to how Taylor and her family turned out. Do they get along? Is her mom proud of her?
March 23, 2016
Just goes to prove that what you see might not be the truth. Taylor has sworn off long term relationships but a fling can be okay with the right man. Mac might just be that man, as a fling will work for him also. What happens next is full of humor and what neither of them saw coming. Jill Shalvis writes characters that draws you right into their stories. Love how her books have lots of humor and make you just want to read more of her work.
September 4, 2019
Great series
Book 3 of the South Village series is just as good as the first two books! I don't know if this is a real town, or based on one, but I want to go there and check it out! Taylor has been in all three books so far and finally got her own story. Mac is definitely worth the wait. Jill Shalvis creates such great characters. The only thing missing is a little suspense, lol. Her storytelling abilities are amazing. I will read anything she writes =)
Book 3 of the South Village series is just as good as the first two books! I don't know if this is a real town, or based on one, but I want to go there and check it out! Taylor has been in all three books so far and finally got her own story. Mac is definitely worth the wait. Jill Shalvis creates such great characters. The only thing missing is a little suspense, lol. Her storytelling abilities are amazing. I will read anything she writes =)
January 12, 2021
All three of these books are essentially about commitment-phobic protagonists. By the third book I was kind of over it. It also felt like the plot moved very slowly. He’d say something and she would think about stuff for three pages before responding. Found myself skimming to try and find where the plot started moving again.
April 7, 2011
Updating my "read" books. I reviewed this for All About Romance years ago. The review is archived HERE .
November 26, 2014
Estuvo buena. Buenas escenas de sexo pero me gustó más Cura de amor.
February 23, 2021
This series was okay. Liked Lucky Harbor better.
April 16, 2017
This is a sassy romance about two people who have given up on love because of hurts from the past.
June 23, 2018
Cuter than the last, enjoyed the protagonists more, but still just ok.
Read
April 2, 2019Categories
Contemporary Women's Fiction, Romance, Contemporary Romance
Miniseries
South Village Singles
Contemporary Women's Fiction, Romance, Contemporary Romance
Miniseries
South Village Singles
February 10, 2020
Very good read about two people coming from well to do families and making it on their own.
Mac and Taylor seem to be made for each other.
Mac and Taylor seem to be made for each other.
May 15, 2015
Almost 4 stars, but not quite.
September 17, 2015
I loved the sexual tension between Taylor and Mac
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews