Loving Ilsa

by Alicia Wiggins

A night out at one of the city’s most popular restaurants yields more than a doggie bag for Ilsa Tanner. After catching the eye of the handsome restaurant owner, Dominic Markos, Ilsa and Dominic soon re-enter the dating world after years of enjoying the single life. Just as their dating adventures begin Ilsa’s new boss turns her once happy workplace into a toxic environment that threatens her job and her sanity.

384 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 9, 2021

Reviews

[Jevelyn Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most beautiful love story ever!

[Katie (spellboundbooks_) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another amazing book by Alicia Wiggins! I loved how real this story seemed and the fact that it was kind of a second chance at love for Ilsa after years of thinking about everyone else in her life.

The story takes place in Columbus, Ohio which I also loved because that's where I am from. I loved knowing exactly what the scenery was like and could imagine it perfectly. There was also the mention of Benton Lake which was a setting in one of the author's other books, A Place Like Home. There are also some reoccurring characters from that book in this one as well. Highly recommend that book!

The characters were written beautifully and I adored Dom. I could just picture the older, handsome Greek/Italian man. These were very realistic characters with the struggles of everyday life. Their story takes place gradually over time while the POV switches between Ilsa and Dom. I liked getting the chance to see both sides of the story and watching how both their feelings unfolded.

Overall, I highly recommend this book and this author for those who want to read a love story that is real and feels natural - unlike some faster-paced romances out there. This is truly a story that anyone could love. I sped through it rather quickly and the ending was well written and wrapped everything up perfectly. Easily a 5-star read!

[Erika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many holes

I was looking forward to reading a more « mature » love story but I was left wanting. First things first. It was frustrating how Ilsa let work eat up her whole life. Her lack of strategy was also painful to read. Basically, she was passed over but instead of either looking for another job by networking or at least build up a case against Grant when things started going downhill so she can approach the Board, she basically decided to do his job without the pay, the recognition but all the humiliation. What lack of self worth. I understand wanting to help the clients, but it can’t be to her detriment.
As for the love story, it was frustrating. There was no direction whatsoever. I understand taking one day at a time but what are their common goals? A glaringly obvious question which was never mentioned, what about children ? She’s 45, he is 47, the window is closing but it’s still possible. Even if they didn’t have biological children, adoption or fostering is possible. Is it something they would be interested in? She has adult children but he never had any, would he like some? If no children what about work/life balance, traveling, retirement etc..
I find it hard to believe that adults would be so laidback about it all.

[Alyssa Watson (fictionalyme) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for a book club. Local author. Point of view shifts were frustrating. I think the book would have been better in third person. The author wrote in first person but would just put it in first person of multiple characters from paragraph to paragraph. It was a nice story but there was no real conflict and the conflict that did present was resolved almost as soon as it was mentioned. The author mentioned a couple times that they may face issues being a biracial couple but then they faced no such conflict. Dom gets hurt in an accident. This could have created some suspense but as soon and she gets to the hospital everything’s fine and he’s getting discharged. Ilsa leaves her job because of a bad boss. This could have been made more interesting if she would have fought to get him out or lost her job going up against him, but she just left and got offered his job a few weeks later but not really because of anything she did. I liked Dom and Ilsa as individual characters and as a couple. But the plot itself was thin and needed more depth.

[Lena Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of her best! I was able to relate to the characters and the storyline was so believable! I loved every minute of it. After reading this book, I purchased all the rest of her books!

[Hannah Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book and love story. It was nice to have something more relatable instead of the young love stories that get annoying and is over exaggerated. I felt like this book was good but needed/missing something to make it great. It was very predictable but still I enjoyed it. Being in columbus and have lived in Ohio my whole life. I was bothered by the constant description of snowing in November and even October I feel like and multiple times and multiple days in a row and that is unrealistic in Ohio. It snows maybe 1-2 times from October to November and never multiple days in a row. That’s more like January through February. Just little distracting along with some letters missing or wrong words used like bought instead of brought. As talking to book club we discussed nothing dramatic happen to make it a wow book but I think that wasn’t a horrible thing but we did not the narrating needed for separation between characters than just a paragraph or needed to be a third person point of view.