That Secret Crush

That Secret Crush is the second book in Meghan Quinn’s Bishop Brothers series, the contemporary romance project that follows three brothers in the small Maine town of Port Snow. The series began with That Second Chance, which set up the central premise of the Bishop family curse that the brothers believe makes any romantic relationship doomed to fail. That Secret Crush turns to Reid Bishop, the middle brother, and develops his particular path to figuring out whether the curse is real or whether the Bishop men’s romantic difficulties have been the result of something else entirely.

Reid Bishop has been quietly in love with Eve Roberts, his older brother Griffin’s best friend, for as long as anyone can remember. The previous book had focused on Griffin’s developing romance with Ren Winters, and the secondary cast of friends and family members had become familiar to readers across the connected world. That Secret Crush brings Reid and Eve together under circumstances that finally force them to acknowledge what has been simmering between them for years, with the brothers’ pact to swear off love providing the obstacle that Reid has to navigate alongside the more universal complications of the friend’s best friend romance trope.

Meghan Quinn writes contemporary romance with the kind of warmth and humor that her readers return to her for. The Bishop Brothers series gives her a small Maine town setting with three brothers, a connected family business, and the kind of recurring cast that makes the series rewarding to read in order. Each subsequent book in the trilogy continues the Bishop family story, with Rogan getting his own central romance in the third novel. The wider Port Snow setting and the connected friend group provide the kind of warm community feeling that her readers love.

The friend’s best friend trope is one of the most reliable in contemporary romance, and Quinn handles it with the practiced confidence of a writer who knows exactly what her readers want and how to deliver it without becoming formulaic. Reid and Eve’s developing relationship has to navigate both the practical complication of his pact with his brothers and the more interior complication of years of unspoken feelings that have to finally be put into words. The slow recognition that what is developing between them is worth the disruption it would cause drives the central romance forward across the page count.

For longtime Meghan Quinn fans, That Secret Crush is a satisfying second entry in the Bishop Brothers trilogy. For new readers, the series rewards being read in order starting with That Second Chance, but That Secret Crush can be picked up as a standalone with some loss of context.