The Ripple Effect by Maggie North [Review]

The Ripple Effect by Maggie North
Format: ebook
Source: provided through NetGalley
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Date read: May 1, 2025

Purchase Links: Paperback | Kindle

Maggie North
| Website | Amazon |

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Burned-out former ER doc Stellar J Byrd can solve any crisis except her own life. But with her financial prospects dwindling, she’d do anything to stay in her beloved, pricey wilderness town—even take a job as a camp physician at The Love Boat, an unspeakably touchy-feely relationship therapy startup. If there are sing-alongs, she’s calling in sick.

What’s worse? Her boss is Lyle “McHuge” McHugh, the sunshiny psychologist she’s masterfully avoided since their disastrous hookup last year. Hardheaded relationship scorekeeper Stellar plans to dodge his pathological generosity from now until September, but after a scathing article puts McHuge's romantic credibility into question, a fake engagement is the only way to salvage the camp’s crumbling public image.

It’s strictly business . . . but the more closely they work together, the more Stellar realizes her feelings for McHuge are anything but professional. With competitors hard on their heels and trade secrets at stake, they must find a way to marry his softness with her steel to build a business–and a love–that will last past summer’s end . . .

Thoughts on The Ripple Effect: I obviously expected to like this book (otherwise I wouldn't have read it), but I didn't expect to like it quite as much as I did. I mean, Stellar is a seething mass of rage in the beginning and I could COMPLETELY understand where her anger and lack of trust came from (being betrayed by the people who should have protected her most can have a profound effect on a person, as it turns out). She was a mess and maybe she made some of the choices she made for the wrong reasons, but she figured things out.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Stellar and Lyle had a mutually enjoyable hookup and Stellar got scared. Like, big scared. She ran, basically ghosting the guy because he was a decent human. Then her life spiraled and all her months of avoiding the best mistake she ever made don't matter because she's going to be working with him at the only job she can get. It's just a job. She can get through it. She's not going to open herself up enough to care about it.

Except she does. Lyle and his vision for what he wants crack her right open and suddenly she's tying fancy knots and finding herself again.

On Lyle's end, he has almost as much baggage as Stellar. His baggage is just purposely less rage-filled. In fact, he actively works on shoving down any bad feelings he might have toward things. Which is a little bit of the problem, I think. Between his size and an unfortunate incident that happened when he was younger, he's learned to minimize himself. He's also a genuinely nice individual who tries to find goodness in the world. Compared to Stellar, he's a foreign language she has to learn how to speak.

Professional betrayal, family connections, friendship in all its shapes and forms, the seedy underbelly of academia, a man who tries his hardest to find the positive in everything around him, and a lady who's lost sight of herself and needs to find her center before her rage burns her out completely. GOOD STUFF all around!