Sugar Daddy: A Novel (Travis Book 1)

Once you've read one book about the Travis family you have to read them all! Lisa's description of her characters are so life like and realistic. She includes real life struggles and always includes self help as well as counseling and paving a new road if you don't like the one your own. Life can be better! Although there are twists and suspense in this series I know the ending will be an indication of life is good.

When awkward teenager Liberty Jones meets self-assured, loner Hardy Cates her life is changed forever. Liberty and her mother have just moved to a trailer home in Welcome, Texas. Hardy lives in the same trailer park with his mother and three siblings. Both the Cates the Jones families don't have much in the way of money, but their ties to their family make their lives complete. Liberty's mother works hard to support her daughter on her own, and when she becomes pregnant, Liberty steps in to help shoulder the extra burden. Likewise, Hardy also comes from a single parent home (his father is in prison) and he works hard outside the home to provide extra income for his family.

Liberty is going through puberty when she first meets Hardy and she falls for him hard. He is her constant advocate, helping her with tests, teaching her to play basketball, helping her see her own inner and outer beauty. But Hardy wants nothing more than to one day leave the sheltered trailer park life behind him and make something of his life. He is determined to not wind up like his father and he knows that falling in love with Liberty will only make it harder for him to go. To both of their dismay, he refuses to get involved with her and he walks away from Welcome and Liberty without turning back. Shortly after, Liberty loses her mother in an accident and is left to raise her two-year-old sister alone.

Forced to act as a single mother to her sister Carrington, Liberty makes sacrifice after sacrifice to ensure they are both fed, healthy, and happy. She sets out on a career path as a hair stylist and moves with Carrington to Houston to work at a prestigious salon. Once there, she meets Churchill Travis, a successful businessman who the other stylists tell her would make a perfect "sugar daddy." Liberty has never considered such an arrangement, but when Churchill takes a personal interest in her and offers her a live-in position as his assistant, she lets herself be swayed for the sake of her sister. Living with Churchill will give Carrington opportunities Liberty could never afford on her own. Soon Liberty has found love, happiness, and contentment in the Travis home and things are going well. But when Hardy steps back into her life after nearly 10 years, she has to decide if she's willing to sacrifice the happiness she's found for the future she'd always dreamed of.

I was skeptical when I found out Lisa Kleypas, one of the leading authors of historical romances, was going to be writing a contemporary novel. I mean, her historicals are so good--why ruin a good thing? Well, I'm here to admit that I was wrong. I forgive her for going the route of contemporary, and if they're all going to be this good, I say keep at it. Sugar Daddy was "unputdownable." I read it in six hours and stayed up until 3 in the morning to do so (and I have to go to work in the morning). But there was simply no other choice. I became absorbed in the characters, in the story, in the outcome and I just had to know how things were going to work out. Liberty Jones is a well-drawn character who develops from a shy, awkward teenager into a self-assured, confident guardian to her sister. She puts herself second to ensure that Carrington is well cared for and even sacrifices her own love life for the good of her family. When she finally finds someone to love, I was so happy for her, but then Hardy stepped back into her life and I had to wonder if she'd made the right choice. Hardy Cates was the stereotypical first love, but more than that he helped Liberty find her own womanhood. When she felt awkward and uncomfortable he put her at ease, and when she went through hard times, he picked her up. I wanted things to work for them, but at the same time it took Liberty so long to move on that I almost resented the easy way in which he walked back into her life. I've read enough romances that I can usually guess how they'll end (happily, of course), but Sugar Daddy's ending was a pleasant surprise for me. This story ranged from laugh out loud funny (the emu story) to heartwrenchingly romantic, and every emotion in between. Pick up Sugar Baby when you're in the mood for a stellar contemporary romance that will keep you on your toes, but make sure you have a few hours to spare because you won't want to put it down.

4.5 Stars | Hot Steam

Utterly addictive and extraordinarily entertaining, SUGAR DADDY is a riveting contemporary masterpiece that contains a story so intelligent, stirring, passionate and powerful that it’s profound effect lingered and lightened my step for days! I relished every single unforgettable word of Liberty, Hardy & The Travis Family’s epic saga and stayed up well into the night feverishly driven to finish. And, though left with a supreme book hangover, I was swiftly soothed by the instant availability of the next two enticing books in the series, BLUE-EYED DEVIL and SMOOTH TALKING STRANGER, as well as the soon to be released BROWN-EYED GIRL this August! I simply can’t wait to re-immerse myself entirely, again and again, in this intoxicating and wildly romantic series!

Bottom Line: Read this book!

Great book! Couldn't believe how emotional I was about this book. I grew up and currently live in the Houston area so that made it even more fun for me since I was familiar with most of the places she talked about. On to Blue Eyed Devil!

Not always a huge romance novel fan, but Sugar Daddy is well written, has a very good build up of tension, and isn't insulting in presenting a love triangle story. I really enjoyed the characters, and I've loved the other Travis books as well.

I have read the historical romances of Lisa Kleypas but this is the first time I read one of her contemporary novels. And I love it! You know there's a lot of thought that went into it. I was hooked with the storyline and the interrelationships. I can't wait to read the Travis Book 2.

Lisa Kleypas's contemporary romance debut, SUGAR DADDY, is a blend of a coming-of-age story and a love story. Liberty Jones's voice is charming and I felt immediately connected to her and her story from page one. Though, I felt frustrated with how the romance (or should I say romances) was handled. By the end I was left feeling a bit Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde: I liked it but I felt really disappointed.

As a young teen, Liberty is a fighter and views the world with a maturity far beyond her years. She and her mother live in a trailer park in the small town of Welcome, Texas. Sadly, her teen years are filled with struggles and personal tragedy. The one constant in her life is Hardy Cates, who's two years her senior and despite the very real connection between them Hardy refuses to go there with Liberty.

Liberty falls hard for Hardy and him for her. But Hardy's dreams are too big for his hometown and takes a job outside of Welcome, leaving his family and Liberty behind in favor of better opportunities. Her tenacity and sheer determination propel her through some very hard times. She lands a job at a top salon in Houston. It's there she meets the salon's most famous high-profile client Churchill Travis, and the two strike up a friendship, leading many of her coworkers to believe she's taken a sugar daddy.

After years of friendship, he invites her to work for him at his home. Churchill's eldest son, Gage, is less than friendly and almost hostile. But he changes his tune after she selflessly nurses him back to health. Upon realizing that she's not there for his father's money, Gage sees Liberty for who she really is—a really nice, caring woman. After years of dating men who never make her feel the way Hardy did, her relationship with Gage is intense and passionate.

The story spans from when Liberty is 13 to 24 years old. Like I said earlier, Liberty's voice is completely charming, so much so that I wanted to be her best friend. I loved her character from beginning to end. The beginning of the novel read almost like a contemporary young adult novel, as we meet 13-year old Liberty, see her awkward years, and watch her fall in love the first time. Aside from my love of Liberty, I really liked the pacing of the novel. I never felt bored and didn't feel like I was reading large portions of filler, just thrown in for word count.

But overall I felt like we had two completely different stories here. The story with Liberty growing up and her missed-opportunity love story with Hardy and the story with grown-up Liberty and the Travises. Neither one felt entirely explored.

The romances with Hardy and later with Gage each had moments I liked but also different elements that were lacking. Kleypas spends a large portion of the novel introducing the reader to young Liberty, her family, and the folks in Welcome. In that, she builds great friendship between Hardy and Liberty, laying the foundation for a believable and compelling romance between Hardy and Liberty, but one that never went anywhere.

Instead of having "the one that went away come back" she takes the novel in a completely different direction with the introduction of Gage's character over halfway through the novel. This relationship seemed to come out of left field and in realtime felt really rushed and underdeveloped.

The author's attempt at a "conflict" in the final quarter of the book didn't have the intended emotional impact on me because I didn't believe it. In order for Liberty's choice to make sense, the author had to make one character super unlikable—and fast. This just felt like a really cheap copout. Because of this character assassination, I wasn't upset with who Liberty ended up with, but more upset with the lost potential of the story.

I know it might sound like I loathed this book. I didn't. I just felt really conflicted. I enjoyed reading the novel and had fun reading it. In the end, all I can say was, "I liked it but...."

For those of you that read Sugar Daddy, should I read the next book in the Travis Family series?

* I borrowed this from my local library. I love the library so much!

This is not my preferred type of romance to read. It felt more like chick lit to me. I don't mean that in a negative way, but it just isn't my cuppa. The rest of this review contains some minor SPOILERS. It's hard to describe what I didn't like without them.

The story started out when the h was 14. The first 2/3 to 3/4 of the book is following her as she grows up. There is some time spent on her teenage love, Hardy, who apparently feels the same way, but won't act on it. This is because he plans to leave their small town as soon as he can and doesn't want to feel tied to anyone. He leaves when the h is about 18ish.

We get to read about some crappy smex, that she doesn't enjoy, with a few boys/men as she grows up. Lots of page time is devoted to her relationship with her little sister. Who she is more of a mother to. Then she meets a nice older man. Really older, but he's not looking for anything sexual. He just wants to be her friend. All this time she's pining for Hardy

Finally she meets someone that she connects with, only to have Hardy reappear about two seconds later. She instantly starts playing tonsil hockey with Hardy. That was the point were I almost stopped reading.

This was not a boring book per se, and it does have an HEA. It just wan't my idea of a good romance. I'm also not a fan of first person POV.

t is beautifully written, which it is a shame because I didn't care about it. The story is boring, too long. The characters are boring. I don't sympathize with them, I don't care about their silly problems. Liberty made me angry almost all the time. And I hated Hardy, so annoying. Too many coincidences, I hate that.

I don't think Kleypas truly understands, or cares, about what it means to be a Latinx in the States. Liberty doesn't care about her heritage. Although she loves and misses her Mexican dad a lot, she doesn't learn about his culture. She doesn't even try.
Liberty lives in Texas, but all her friends are white. Annoying. The characters think she is exotic, which it is so offensive. And the worst, they don't recognize her as a biracial. The book tries so hard to make us forget, too. I mean, the protagonist compares beauty with whiteness. I don't think I have to explain why that is wrong and offensive.
I don't get it. If you don't care about Mexican culture, if you don't want to make a character who struggles with her identity and society, if you try to make her white, if you don’t understand racism, then don't write about us. We don't need more silly characters like Liberty.

From the start I should have known this series wasn't for me, rich people piss me off.