She Treads Softly: Our Beautiful Mess

Friday, January 16, 2026

Our Beautiful Mess

Our Beautiful Mess Book Cover

Our Beautiful Mess by Adele Parks
2/10/26; 448 pages
Park Row Books/Harlequin

Our Beautiful Mess by Adele Parks is a so-so, tedious family drama which is indeed both a mess and a miss. This one has soap opera vibes and not in a good way. Adele Parks has written much better novels.

Connie is thrilled to have all of her daughters home for Christmas. Her oldest, Fran arrives with her boyfriend Zak and surprises everyone with her obvious pregnancy. Connie is unsettled by Zak because he resembles a man she had an affair with years ago. Let the secrets be exposed and the slow moving family drama ensue.

I may be an outlier, but I found all the the characters supremely off-putting and annoying right at the start. Adding to that frustration is the very lethargic pace. Sure, drama was going on but it was stretchered out forever with internal monologues and predictable twists. Soon the drama requires you to set disbelief aside multiple times and the novel was no longer compelling or even enjoyable. Once it felt like a chore to continue reading I lost almost all my engagement with it. It does pick up toward the end but by then it was too late to redeem.

Our Beautiful Mess will likely best be enjoyed by those who enjoy romance mysteries mixed with a family drama and die-hard fans of Adele Park. Thanks to Park Row Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.