Karleigh

by Lisa Washington

Never let your dreams falter away. Karleigh has a strong Faith to quit her job and open a hair salon. But when she is hit with many unforeseen circumstances, she leans on the most unlikely person. The owner of the barber shop next door initially didn't want Karleigh's salon next door, but after meeting the new entrepreneur, he had an overwhelming need to help her become successful. What will happen when they both realize that their business relationship is changing into romance?

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

Lisa Washington is an award-winning author with a 2018 African American Literary Show Award for Best Christian Fiction Novel for her debut novel When You Least Expect It and a 2020 Author Elite Award for best Clean Romance for her third novel Love Lifted Me.

Washington is a U.S. Navy veteran originally from Detroit, MI. She is also a graduate of Wayne State University (MI), Averett University (VA) and Butler University (IN). She currently resides with her family in Georgia.

FUN FACT: Washington has a college degree from every state where she has lived.

Reviews

[Lia Durnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The overall premise of Karleigh by Lisa Washington was very good. The story starts with Karleigh Hammond achieving her dream of starting a hair salon, a goal she'd been saving and sacrificing for after an unhappy career in corporate America. Next door to the salon's location was a Sharper Image Barber Shop owned by Simon Sharpe who owned a number of barbershops in the area. In fact, he had plans to expand into the location where Karleigh was setting up her salon, so he wasn't too happy about that at first, but quickly got over the loss and began to help her.

As a new entrepreneur, Karleigh faced a number of obstacles and her neighbor Simon was always there to help out. He bought over his crew to help them paint Karleigh's salon then offered to help her install cabinets. She knew she'd be a fool to not accept his help--because she needed it. Then when they came over to help with the cabinets, Simon ended up saving the day by picking up shampoo bowls. Karleigh says to Simon that she can't keep depending on him to bail her out of trouble and she can't accept his help. Yet that is exactly what she does over and over again.

After all of this help from Simon--and not one act of reciprocity on Karleigh's part whatsoever--one day Simon asks her to dinner, nothing fancy, just a sandwich at a deli. She confronts him to ask if he's interested in her because her sisters think so. He admits that he is interested in her but just to get to know her as friends. Karleigh shuts him down. She thanks him for the help, admits she couldn't have done it without him or his friends, gathers her bags and leaves.

Now I understand that just because a person who has helped you wants to date you doesn't mean you are obliged to date them, but to turn down a sandwich? And about that, why wasn't SHE offering to buy HIM a sandwich and cooking him breakfast, and breaking her back in six places after the way he kept saving her over and over again?

I understand that the theme of the story was that Simon was selfless and helped Karleigh out of the goodness of his heart without expecting anything in return, but the flip side is Karleigh's rudeness, suspicions about why he was helping and utter failure to reciprocate even a little bit. I felt she was so wrong and could not connect with her throughout the story.

But anyway overall the story of two entrepreneurs was good. The writing was excellent. I loved the description of the neighborhood and Simon was a great hero. I'm giving this story 4 solid stars and will move on to the next book in the series.