Review and Author Interview: Triple Love Score by Brandi Megan Granett

Title: Triple Love Score
Author: Brandi Megan Granett 
Format: ARC
Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
Publish Date: September 1, 2016
Source: PR

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "A poetry professor stumbles into fame and fortune as an anonymous online Scrabble(r) poet. Miranda lives a quiet life among books and letters as a poetry professor in a small upstate town. When two snap decisions turn up the volume on her life, she must decide whether or not her best laid plans actually lead to where her heart wants to go."

My Two Cents:

"Triple Love Score" is a sweet romance about Miranda, who is a poetry professor by trade and a social media star in her personal life. Her brand of social media is right down my alley: Miranda starts creating poetry on her beloved Scrabble board, a game which played witness to Miranda's heartbreak. Six years ago, Scott disappeared from her life and Miranda was reeling. Now that Scott is back, Miranda has to decide whether or not she can deal with where Scott has been and put her heart on the line. A smart and cute romance, this book pulled me right out!

One of the things that I liked best about this book is that characters felt really real. I was pulling for Miranda throughout the book. She is a great heroine. While Scott was out of her life, she never really put herself back together and spent a lot of time dwelling on what could have been. Her Scrabble poems are her outlet and it isn't until Scott is back in her life that she starts trying to figure things out. She stumbles along the way and since she's endearing, you're happy to follow her through it all.

I liked the love story between Scott and Miranda. They are both great characters and I loved the way that the author showed that there was a lot more to Scott than met the eye. There are a lot of twists and turns, which I loved. Love isn't always nice and straight forward. You're pulling for them the whole way. This is a great story about holding on to see where life will take you even when things get difficult.

Author Interview:

What inspired you to write Triple Love Score?

Well, I fell in love with my best friend of 19 years. I found myself in the middle of a divorce with all the doors of my life back open. Like Miranda in Triple Love Score, I faced some decisions about where I wanted to go and whether I could trust love again. Falling in love also made it easier to write again; all of a sudden, everything seemed possible, so I thought, why not try my hand at creating another book!

Who is your favorite character in this book and why?

My favorite character is Lynn, Scott’s daughter. I loved seeing the world through her very enthusiastic eyes, the great lines she gets to deliver, and how she believed everything should be celebrated with pancakes.

Can you tell us about your favorite scene in the book?  

My favorite scene in the book is when Miranda brings Ian back to her apartment. Rather than passively going with his lead, she finally stands up for herself. “Put out or get out,” she says to him out of both sexual tension in the moment, but also out of frustration for her life in general. I could personally relate to her decision to finally stand up for herself, and I loved turning the tables on a romantic convention by putting her in charge of the tryst!

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

My best advice for them is advice that is tough to swallow. Stop making writing precious. You don’t need a cup of Earl Grey tea and a Cake Batter scented candle in a Pinterest-inspired writing room at your magical writing hour. To be a writer, you must write. Full stop. Most successful authors would add to that everyday. I learned in pursuing competitive archery that the best on the field didn’t care about the weather or if it was Christmas or their birthday or if they had a long day at work; the best practiced every day. The surest way to make sure an idea for a book becomes a book is put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard every damn day.

If you could bring any three people (fictional or non-fictional) with you to a deserted island, who would you bring and why?

Well, you will think I am a sap for this, but I don’t like to go anywhere without my husband, Avram, and daughter, Meg. We have a saying in our family that we could even make going to a hardware store fun. And some of our best adventures happened in the most mundane of places! If I had to name a third person, I’d like to take liberties because I feel dogs are people too and request that our corgi, Red Sharkey, come along. We just returned from an archery trip, and Red is still at my mom’s, and I clearly see why a house just isn’t a home without a dog.