Review: My Scorned Best Friend by Piper Rayne (The Greene Family #7)

July 09, 2022

Note: An advance reader copy (ARC) was provided by the authors via Valentine PR.

I have been absolutely desperate for Xavier Greene and Clara Harrison's story since these former best friends had a falling out and X showed up in their hometown of Sunrise Bay, Alaska with a different woman. Naturally, fellow readers and myself, along with everyone in Sunrise Bay, wanted to know what the heck happened to these two considering how close they had always been. I was prepared to wait till the end of the series because I had assumed (yes, yes, I know what happens when you assume) this most anticipated story would close out all things Greene Family. So, imagine my surprise when the awesome twosome of Piper Rayne announced they would be lucky number seven instead! And so here we are, with My Scorned Best Friend out in the wild FINALLY!

I kid you not when I say that my expectations for this seventh Greene Family novel were higher than for any of those that came before it, and that's all because this is Xavier and Clara's book! Their mothers were best friends, and you'd think that it was inevitable that X and Clara would become besties as well. No one knew him better than she did, and vice-versa. Over the years, that bond of theirs simply grew stronger, and the thought that one wouldn't be in the other's life would have been ludicrious. But all it took was one night that saw the professional football player and the small-town librarian for everything to change, and not for the better. It's been two years since that night, and Xavier has many regrets. The time has finally come to make amends because life without Clara has proven to be one that he no longer wants. The question is: Is X too little too late?

Communication is key in any sort of relationship, but telling someone that they need to communicate better when there are feelings of hurt, abandonment, and betrayal is easier said than done. You could see that X thought what he did was necessary given his fear that he would lose Clara forever, but then, that's what happened anyway. Then there was Clara who could not believe that the one person she trusted most could do what he did. I felt for these two because it was clear that they were missing each other, but how do you move forward after everything that's happened and with two years having gone by? There were moments of frustration, but I liked that both X and Clara made the effort to try and repair their friendship and were willing to take that chance and go from platonic to romantic. I'm just glad they finally got their HEA. 4.5 stars go to My Scorned Best Friend.

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Read my reviews for the Greene Family series: