I had a very hard time deciding what to rate this book… somewhere between 3.5 – 4 stars.
It is labeled as a grumpy/sunshine rom com and I will agree it sticks to that for the most part.
Liam is a strait-laced, no-nonsense drug enforcement cop who lost a friend right after high school due to an overdose. He thinks all drugs are evil and doubles down on that multiple times in the book. So much so that it is a little hard to believe by the end, he is in love with who he considers a drug dealer. He’s honestly kind of a jackass the entire book. But he’s hot and it’s mentioned WAY too often in the book. Literally his and his partners nicknames are Hot and Hotter.
Loreli is a happy, savvy business owner, she’s a baker, owns a food truck and has a grow permit. She sells (now legal in her state), edible goodies laced with THC. She’s very organized with all her permits which I appreciate the author mentioning multiple times. Only goes to adult parties, checks IDs and is doing rather well in life.
Liam sees her food truck by chance one day and falls instantly in lust with Loreli, as she does him, but hates “drugs” so much he keeps insulting her, calling her awful names, and tries to get her business shut down by giving her petty tickets and fines. You can obviously see inside their heads per the author and what they’re thinking (basically that they’re both sooooo hot) but on the outside, Liam is hard to like. He treats Loralei awfully. He even arrests her at some point but stops to meet his mom with her handcuffed and they run errands together…. While she’s handcuffed. It’s definitely not police procedure by any means. Liam IS really cute with Loreli’s dog the entire story.
Basically they have these law breaking run ins where he’s trying to wreck her business, they date once or twice, then have incredibly graphic over the top sex which did not match the rest of the books flow especially with the weird awkward “dirty cop talk”, she accidentally doses him before they attend court together (from HIS tickets he’s giving her), then they don’t talk for a week or two while he’s working on a huge mEth drug bust. She takes his mom some pot brownies because she’s going through cancer treatment, Liam finds out and explodes on her in an incredibly cruel way. Liam goes on his drug bust, gets shot/stabbed/choked almost to death (it’s a very violent scene FYI), then realizes he loves Loreli and wants to marry her. They work it out and 6 months later they’re engaged despite him still hating what she does.
Again, it sounds like I did not enjoy the book. I did. There’s funny times, laughable times, happy times, sexy times and it's pretty cute. It’s just not really believable to me. Liam doesn’t seem like he’d ever be okay with Loreli being a “dirty drug dealer” and they’re romance and falling in love was so fast, it kind of left me wondering how and when they fell in love. From their handful of rude interactions? From their one date and night of sex? Because he almost died? There could have been a lot less talk about MJ and more development between the characters for sure.
Liked it enough to read it all the way through and wondered about the next couple.