Review: Say You Still Love Me by KA Tucker

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Genres: Adult, Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Atria Books
Source: Libby (My Library app)

Life is a mixed bag for Piper Calloway.
On the one hand, she’s a twenty-nine-year-old VP at her dad’s multibillion-dollar real estate development firm, and living the high single life with her two best friends in a swanky downtown penthouse. On the other hand, she’s considered a pair of sexy legs in a male-dominated world and constantly has to prove her worth. Plus, she’s stuck seeing her narcissistic ex-fiancé—a fellow VP—on the other side of her glass office wall every day.
Things get exponentially more complicated for Piper when she runs into Kyle Miller—the handsome new security guard at Calloway Group Industries, and coincidentally the first love of her life.
The guy she hasn’t seen or heard from since they were summer camp counsellors together. The guy from the wrong side of the tracks. The guy who apparently doesn’t even remember her name.
Piper may be a high-powered businesswoman now, but she soon realizes that her schoolgirl crush is not only alive but stronger than ever, and crippling her concentration. What’s more, despite Kyle’s distant attitude, she’s convinced their reunion isn’t at all coincidental, and that his feelings for her still run deep. And she’s determined to make him admit to them, no matter the consequences.

I’m absolutely ashamed that I forgot how much I love KA Tucker! It’s been a while since I’ve read one of her books, but I can’t believe I’d forgotten to pick up her books over the years! I picked this one up at the recommendation of Jess @ PeaceLoveBooks on BookTube as part of Romance-opoly, a year-long reading challenge that I’m participating in (read more about it here). We tend to have very similar romance opinions, so I didn’t even read the blurb once I saw it was available from my library as an ebook. 

Luckily, she steered me right! I absolutely adored this one. It was told in dual-time, 13 years ago when Piper and Kyle first met and were camp counselors together; and to present day, where Piper is Vice President of her dad’s Real Estate company… and she just bumped into Kyle for the first time since camp, during the first day of his new security job in her building. 

Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen. Here we have a second-chance, workplace romance <3 and I thought it was incredibly well done. How awkward must it be to bump into your first love at work? Especially when Kyle cut Piper out of his life as soon as they left campgrounds, and left all of her communication efforts unanswered. I also loved the camp chapters, going their life as camp counselors and the warm blush of first love. Awww ? They really loved each other, although they were isolated from the problems that came with being together due to the stark difference in circumstances: with his mega-impoverished upbringing from a family of criminals, and her wealthy family. 

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“You need to figure out if you and Kyle can actually make this work in today’s world. Is this going to be an epic star-crossed lovers’ saga or some tawdry two-hour romance where the heiress to billions is banging the security guard on her desk?” 
“I’d read either of those stories,” Ashley murmurs through a sip of milk. 

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Piper was such a great heroine. She came from a wealthy family and, as the VP of the family business, she has some money herself. But she works so hard for her company – mostly because she loves it, and she wants to deserve it – and shares a penthouse suite with her two friends from summer camp all those years ago, where the two of them live rent-free. She makes an effort to know and be kind to everyone in her building that she comes into contact with – the assistants, the security guards, the mailman – and was honestly so much fun. She couldn’t care less if people (like Kyle) have money or not. If only he felt the same way.

Kyle Miller was an interesting character because we get to see what happens when the bad boy grows up and learns that a devil-may-care attitude can have consequences. He was definitely a bad boy during their times as a camp counselor and I was definitely swooning over him. He wasn’t “bad” in a bad way, but he did feel that rules were meant to be flexed a bit and lived to get into shenanigans with his best guy friend. But something happened at camp the year, because of those shenanigans, and he had to change his tune a bit. Facing a life of blue-collar work and coming from a family of criminals, knowing that would always be everyone’s expectation of him, he worked hard and had little aspirations beyond keeping his job for the next day. Present Day Kyle was a different guy than the one that she went camping with, and Piper had her work cut out to get him to take a chance on her, despite their situational differences. 

Kyle was definitely a sweetheart, but I do think that Tucker relied on Camp Kyle a bit too much when creating Present Day Kyle. Because we got a bit less character development from Present Day Kyle. But still, I adored their workplace romance. He was a tad shy and their romance was an emotional journey before they even got to a kiss, which is the kind of romance that I always enjoy. One of my friends is actually (hopefully) going to be a camp counselor this summer, and I was thinking of her while reading those scenes. They had fun, and honestly made me wish that I’d applied for a job. So good, will definitely be checking out more KA Tucker in the coming months!

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What are some of your favorite romances you’ve read lately? What’s an author that you think is under-appreciated  Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear from you!